Performer: Ana Durlovski

In Jussi Wieler and Sergio Morabito’s pugilistic production of Ariodante, the singers needed as much physical and gymnastic dexterity as vocal finesse.

Although a British composer by birth, Rebecca Saunders is most respected in Germany, where she has spent much of her working life. Her latest project was an immersive choreographed programme with the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie based around her violin concerto still. 

Visual references both incongruous and perceptive abound in the third instalment of Bayreuth's musically triumphant Ring cycle.

Excellent singing and a stunning debut win out over relentlessly clever visual effects.

With this mesmerising version of Les contes d'Hoffmann, Marthaler has proved (as Offenbach did more than one century ago) that it is possible to love Romanticism through its satire. 

The opening of the Teatro Real’s season in Madrid has been anything but uneventful. However, Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia, the ever-pleasing opera chosen to welcome back an expectant audience, had very little to do with it.