Performer: Aušrinė Stundytė

Carè, Stundytė and Pursio all shine as singers and actors in an intense, exciting production at the Finnish National Opera.

Franz Schreker’s Die Gezeichneten (The Branded One) is an unsettling work given the storyline’s background of abduction and clandestine sexual abuse. Calixto Bieito, as expected, eschews ambiguity regarding what goes on behind the scenes, and casts even the titular cripple Alviano Salvago in a damning light.

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.

Hans Neuenfels new Salome proves a strangely non-committal affair at the Staatsoper, but Thomas Guggeis conducts impressively.

The Spanish director offers a controversial angle but tones it down to focus on dark psychology rather than spectacle in his staging of Schrecker's hothouse opera.