Performer: Alexey Bogdanchikov

Opening the new opera season, Kent Nagano powerfully directs Mussorgsky's great psychodrama about a famous tsar, marred only by Frank Castorf's visually confusing and symbolically overweighted production. 

From stylised 16th-century dress to a 1970s sitcom ballet, Konwitschny's Staatsoper staging is full of brilliantly inventive touches, splendidly realised in this excellently sung revival. 

Hamburg's revival of a 2015 production is a musical success, but the director's concepts are sometimes too dense to tell a straightforward story.

Neither Sir Walter Scott nor Donizetti were well served by the farcical staging, but finally bellissimo bel canto prevailed over the production.

Mozart's very notes become servant to the cause in an ingenious staging of Le nozze di Figaro by one of today's most esteemed directors.

Thoughtful character placement and a keen eye for detail contribute to a Carmen in Rome which is short on passion, but lovingly played.