En direct, Vidéo: Rechercher des critiques de musique classique, opéra et ballet | Anne-Sophie Duprels

Is Puccini's second opera unloved and unlovable? Opera Holland Park makes a commendable attempt to revive Edgar, but struggles to overcome its many flaws.

Todo Richard Strauss en los atriles de la Orquesta Nacional de España dirigida por Josep Pons, para una velada de intensidad musical y cuidada dirección.

Puccini's Giselle-inspired opera is given a superb staging by Martin Lloyd-Evans to deliver Opera Holland Park's banger of the season. 

A journey through the subconscious of the main protagonist Edmea, with Anne-Sophie Duprels as the eponymous heroine.

Risurrezione is a work whose value is to be found more in the orchestra than in the vocal lines, a peculiar thing for an Italian opera belonging to an epoch that gloried in enticing melodies.

Gaitanou’s direction of the singers is so exact that it becomes impossible to separate them from their characters.

An embarrassingly trite libretto proves unsalvageable, even with a committed cast of singers.

A convincing revival for Opera North's Madama Butterfly at Leeds Grand Theatre directed by Tim Albery and conducted by Martin Pickard.

Franco Alfano’s name is inextricably linked to that of Puccini, as he’s mostly remembered for completing the unfinished score of Turandot, and has overshadowed his own operas. 

A convincing outing for Leoncavallo's rarely performed tale of adultery, populated by characters who are flesh and blood and are immediately recognisable today.

Poulenc's one-act, one-side-of-a-phone-conversation opera provides a perfect vehicle for Anne-Sophie Duprels to demonstrate her talents as a singing actor.

Two parts of Puccini's triptych are directed by Michael Barker-Craven - Il tabarro and Suor Angelica - in brilliantly successful productions at Leeds Grand Theatre.

Perhaps not a masterpiece, but worth exploring, Mascagni's Iris returns to Opera Holland Park. 

Anthony McDonald’s Rusalka looks and sounds wonderful in a traditionally told production, with Anne Sophie Duprels returning to the role.

Opera Holland Park give us a broad span of human joys and tragedies in an excellently staged and acted rendering of Puccini's Il trittico.

Tragedy giving way to comedy – a recipe which still works, as demonstrated in Opera North's fine double bill of Gianni Schicchi and La vida breve.

The charm-ometer was cranked firmly to ‘high’ yesterday evening for the opening opera of this year’s Buxton Festival with a performance of The Jacobin, an opera close to Dvořák’s heart. 

Scottish Opera revives Sir David McVicar's Madama Butterfly. It still looks wonderful. The music, players and singers tell the harrowing story magnificently.

There can be little doubt that two principal draws of the Buxton Festival are the annual opportunity to experience little-known and sometimes totally unheard-of repertoire and composers, and forgotten repertoire by familiar composers; the co-operation of such a festival committee, patrons and backers that supports the production of rare works is a gift to any artistic director – especially one as

Whatever Puccini’s Madama Butterfly has going for it, it isn’t suspense – everything that’s going to happen is spelled out the first few pages of the score, as Pinkerton chuckles that the marriage contracts in Japan are as flexible as the property leases, renegotiable on a monthly basis, and toasts the day he gets married “for real” to an American bride.

When Giacomo Puccini's Madama Butterfly premiered at La Scala in 1904, it was heavily booed. Few who attended that disastrous first performance could have imagined that, more than one hundred years on, it would have evolved into one of the most enduringly popular and widely performed operas in the world.

The eponymous heroine of Dvořák’s Rusalka is a water-sprite from the woods and lakes of Middle European fairy-tale, very much the territory familiar to ballet lovers in Giselle and Swan Lake.

The story of Carmen is a tale of people at the bottom of the heap; factory workers, gypsies, bullfighters, ordinary soldiers, yet the romance of Spain and Bizet’s exuberant and unforgettable tunes have combined to give us a prettified, glamorous idea of Carmen, full of flamenco costumes, castanets, handsome toreadors and none of the rough edges.

The popularity of Bizet's 'Carmen' leaves many opera lovers knowing exactly what they want to hear and see before even entering the theatre.