Artiste: Pablo Bemsch

Orpha Phelan has fun staging Félicien David’s opéra comique, moving the action from Kashmir and Samarkand to Leila O’Rourke’s Tea Emporium.

Die Fledermaus is as quintessentially Viennese Schnitzel. In John Wilson, the Philharmonia and a fine ensemble cast, we should have had all the ingredients for a memorable matinée performance, but a few elements meant the fizz went rather flat.

From Studio to Stage was the name of this year’s summer performance by young artists on the Jette Parker programme at the Royal Opera House. The programme includes not only singers but also conductors/répétiteurs, a pianist, a lighting designer and stage director Pedro Ribeiro, who surely wins the prize for best headshot.

The Jette Parker Young Artists double bill of Jules Massenet’s rare one-act opera Le Portrait de Manon (sequel to Manon) and Hector Berlioz’s Les Nuits d’été, featured romance, mystique and sumptuous singing.