Artiste: Rob Kearley

If you love Verdi's inventive music, enjoy fabulous male voices in particular, and appreciate great opera conducting with exquisitely sensitive orchestral playing – then this Rigoletto is a must.

Opera North's Death in Venice is another winner for the company in Britten's centenary year, originally directed by Yoshi Oida. Alan Oke is a successful, anguished Aschenbach.

The set for this Faust is a series of blank screens, which slide about quickly and frequently, tall canvases for constantly changing images provided by Berlin-based video artist Lillevan.