Artiste: Mark Delavan

Soprano Alexandra Shiner displays extraordinary vocal promise and stage presence across a host of Wagner's great female roles.

The return of the Met's Aida was a joyous celebration of the art form with excellent singers and orchestra doing what they do best against the backdrop of a traditional but effective staging.

Richard Jones's production of Puccini’s Western opera La fanciulla del West is well sung, but fails to tap in to the Wild West atmosphere of the surroundings.

Marco Tutino's Two Women at San Francisco Opera feels lacking in musical originality and its out-of-date accompanying taste of re-heated Italian verismo comes a little over-cooked.

All things considered, this Met Siegfried was a mixed affair. There was much to enjoy and much to marvel at; there were times where the performance felt as if it might achieve real lift-off, but it never quite achieved the sustained momentum of Friday's Walküre.

In last night’s performance of Die Walküre at the Met, Martina Serafin as Sieglinde and Simon O’Neill as Siegmund drew us completely into the process of two people falling into illicit love.