Artiste: Damiano Salerno

Stylish, intelligent and visceral, with a magnetic central performance by Claire Rutter, Grange Park give us a powerful, tough La traviata updated to 1950s Hollywood.

With programming in the major opera houses dominated by Verdi and Wagner, bel canto fans have had a slightly thin time of it this year (Covent Garden’s La donna del lago is an exception). But others are filling some of the gaps, with Rossini’s Maometto II coming up at Garsington and Stephen Langridge’s production of Bellini’s I Puritani, which opened at Grange Park last night.