Salle: O'Reilly Theatre, Dublin

Tom Creed's take on Offenbach's opéra fantastique works best in the Olympia act in this new production in Dublin. 

Top accolades go to soprano Mary Plazas, whose Duchess was at once despicable for her sense of entitlement and her racist and anti-Semitic views, and heartbreakingly vulnerable with her realisation at the end that "the only people who were ever good to me were paid for it".