Artiste: Olivia Ray

Gwyn Hughes Jones, Elizabeth Llewellyn and Sir Simon Keenlyside star in David Alden's setting of Otello in a militarised Cyprus.

Ivor Bolton and Kit Hesketh-Harvey deliver a brilliant political thriller and anti-Putin polemic – at least for its first half.

Olena Tokar's assured coloratura made an immediate success of the waltz with her convincingly adolescent appearance, rhythmic verve and stylish phrasing.

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.

When you think chic, black-tie country house opera, you probably don’t also think sixteen barefoot nuns being executed. Grange Park Opera’s fusion of these two contrasting ideas, however, has a lot going for it: their production of Francis Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites combines its minimal but effective staging with some impressive singing.