Performer: Andrew Craig Brown

What to do with a “classic revival” that has, in the main, met the critics’ eye of approval? That was the question facing Natascha Metherell, the revival director of ENO’s production of La bohème, which opened this week at the Coliseum. The revival was in fact deftly handled: a production which remained faithful to Miller’s original vision, with honest, rather than over-egged, sentimentality.

The full name of Handel's opera is Giulio Cesare in Egitto: it depicts a historically loose version of Caesar's sojourn in Alexandria, during which Pompey is murdered, Ptolemy is killed in battle and Cleopatra is installed as Queen.