Performer: Angelika Kirchschlager

Keith Warner directs a new opera which packs in betrayal, murder, oppression, freedom, love and the Spanish Inquisition into a mere 90 minutes.

Hats off to Andreas Homoki, Artistic Director at the Zurich Opera House, for staging a musical around “the chill of ghostly shadows”.

Vienna State Opera offered a solid production in which precious little gleamed.

Requiring trained opera singers to focus primarily on acting and asking actors to sing in a renowned opera house puts everyone out of their comfort zone, which is not necessarily a bad thing.

I have no objection per se with naked women bathing in blood, masturbating to crucifixes or being flagellated by priests in confessional booths, but only if it somehow aids understanding of the story

Every operatic ingredient was thrown into the pot for H.K. Gruber's Geschichten aus dem Wiener Wald (Tales from the Vienna Woods), but do too many cooks spoil this operatic broth?