En direct, Vidéo: Rechercher des critiques de musique classique, opéra et ballet | English | Dimitri Platanias

Questionable conducting aside, The Royal Opera's latest revival of Damiano Michieletto’s fluid production of the famous operatic double-bill is terrifically executed by two excellent casts.

With more cast reshuffles than in Downing Street of late, this revival of Damiano Michieletto's intertwined Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci double bill triumphs against the odds.

The French-Sicilian tenor shines in Sir David's McVicar's pristine take on Umberto Giordano's slice of verismo. 

Tenor-turned-director José Cura transplants the action from southern Italy to Buenos Aires. 

The father-daughter exchanges between Dmitri Platanias's jester and Sofia Fomina's Gilda prove the highlights of an evening which doesn't always catch fire.

Verdi voices that make one sit up and listen made this a memorable matinee.

Glyndebourne's second Traviata cast of the summer saw the festival field three principals worthy of any major international opera house. 

A gripping double bill of  “Cav &Pag” from Italian director Damiano Michieletto at Covent Garden includes a few surprise guest appearances. 

James Gaffigan, aided by a fine cast of soloists led by the full-blooded Rigoletto of Dimitri Platanias, demonstrated that Verdi's powerfully dramatic music does not need staging to keep the audience captivated.

Sometimes catching a performance with its second cast can be as revealing as attending a first night, and that was the case with this production of Rigoletto by the Canadian director Robert Carsen at La Monnaie in Brussels.

Capitalising on their success with Verdi’s opera Rigoletto during the Aix-en-Provence Festival in the summer, the London Symphony Orchestra and conductor Gianandrea Noseda chose to open the 2013/14 season last night with the same work.

Last night’s Covent Garden revival of Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra was a study in time slips. On stage, there is the 25 year slip between the end of the prologue, when Simon is named Doge of Genoa, and the dramatic events of Act I. There is the 24 year gap between the disastrous première of the original opera and the triumph of the heavily revised 1881 version.

Verdi's Rigoletto is a work of contrasts. The Duke is equally at home in a glittering palace or a tawdry brothel (a historically accurate characterisation of King Francis I of France, on whom his character is based); his romantic ballads are juxtaposed with the musical depiction of violent storms. Pretty courtly dances share the stage with powerful orchestral evocations of impending doom.