En direct, Vidéo: Rechercher des critiques de musique classique, opéra et ballet | Ross McInroy

James Hurley directs a new production of Puccini's neglected opera to close Opera North's Green Season. 

The director Edward Dick and his designer, Tom Scutt, alternate between realistic and expressionistic images in their creation of grim spectacle.

A daring double bill from Opera North and Phoenix Dance Theatre pairs Jeanguy Saintus' new choreography for The Rite of Spring with a revival of Christopher Alden's production of Gianni Schicchi. 

Alessandro Talevi's production of Don Giovanni, conducted by Christoph Altstaedt, receives a welcome revival at the Grand Theatre, Leeds. 

Opera North's Andrea Chénier at Leeds Grand Theatre directed by Annabel Arden is full of modern relevance and a fine start to the new season

Scottish Opera’s final production of the season was a revival of the much-loved 1980 production of Tosca by the late Anthony Besch, redirected here by Jonathan Cocker. Besch was struck by the political parallel between the Napoleonic era of the 1800s and Italy under Mussolini in the 1940s, and he made the bold choice to set this production in 1943.

Paradox is unsurprising in the works of a composer who said: "The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one's self of the chains that shackle the spirit." The often distancing neoclassical idiom seemed unable to deny Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress (1951) emotionally engaging and affecting music.

Scottish Opera and Northern Ireland Opera's new version of Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld has been touring Scotalnd and Northern Ireland: it's now arrived in London for a short run at the Young Vic in London, in its 150-seater Maria hall alongside the main theatre.