Artiste: Richard Baker

Emily Howard's new opera, an Aldeburgh Festival commission, takes an ambitiously modernist approach to a dystopian story of loneliness: a tough, but thought-provoking work. 

Philip Venables' 4.48 Psychosis is the first musical adaptation of the eponymous play by Sarah Kane, which is the culmination of a three-year programme run jointly by the Royal Opera and Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

A new collaboration between Aldeburgh Music, Opera North and The Royal Opera produced mixed results: while Francisco Coll's Café Kafka was a characterful piece which combined humour with darker undertones, Elspeth Brooke's The Commission proved less successful.