Performer: Andrei Popov

With Claus Guth directing and Simone Young on the podium, the Staatsoper Unter den Linden's new production of Mussorgsky's Khovanshchina proves that the past isn't really past. 

Its premiere postponed from Festival d'Aix last summer, Barrie Kosky's staging of Rimsky-Korsakov's political satire finally takes place in Lyon. 

Barrie Kosky's makes a limited impact in his debut at Opéra de Paris, apart from an hallucinogenic Polovtsian Dances.

With a stunningly inventive and modern-sounding score, strong acting performances and a staging full of theatrical illusion and coherent in spite of general weirdness, Aix's Fiery Angel impresses.

In Tarkovsky's venerable production, the Mariinsky orchestra and chorus are brilliant – but too brilliant for their soloists, including two replacement Borises for an indisposed Mikhail Petrenko.