Artiste: Sarah Redgwick

Three years ago, John Berry, ENO’s Artistic Director, invited acclaimed theatre director Rufus Norris to reinvent Mozart’s Don Giovanni. Unfortunately, it was not much of a success, and was panned by critics. This year, the production has returned to ENO, with some changes, albeit none that are particularly remarkable. ENO’s publicity machine has, this time round, gone on an advertising offensive.

After their Mascagni debut last year, with L’amico Fritz (the composer’s first post-Cavalleria opera), Opera Holland Park have set out to uncover more music from the so-called ‘one-hit-wonder’ – still known to most for his smash verismo opera alone.

Alfredo Catalani's La Wally is the last of three rarely performed Italian operas from the late 19th century verismo period to feature in Opera Holland Park's 2011 season. Catalani belongs to group of composers whose place in the modern repertoire suffers from the problem of "not being Puccini," the more poignantly since he was born in Puccini's home town of Lucca.

Mozart's Don Giovanni is an opera that is most difficult to classify. On the one hand, it has many of the trappings of a traditional opera buffa: a fast-paced farce with people falling in and out of bed, master and servant switching clothes, a buffoon-like manservant sung in the bass register and so on.