Artiste: Craig Smith

A great return appearance for English Touring Opera's Puccini double bill opening its spring tour at the Hackney Empire.

Blanche McIntyre's new production for ETO proves a disappointment, saddled with a trip hazard of a set. 

English Touring Opera gives Gluck's reformist masterpiece a suitably blood-spattered outing in a production which keeps the opera in touch with its classical roots.