Performer: Barrie Kosky

Relentlessness is the keyword of Aribert Reimann’s modernist Lear, in a stripped-down new Komische Oper Berlin production by Barrie Kosky.

Klaus Mäkelä and the Orchestre de Paris give us an orchestral kaleidoscope, Kosky's pared-down staging allows the emotions of Strauss and Hofmannstahl's work to shine through.

In Barrie Kosky’s hyperactive staging, Il viaggio a Reims becomes a birthday tribute to Cecilia Bartoli complete with rewritten text, extravagant costumes, sexual escapades and a giant cake. 

A revelatory orchestral performance and a cast led by Andreas Schager, Christopher Maltman and Elisabeth Strid make this a Siegfried for the record books.

Shostakovich's opera is laid bare in Berlin, to devastating effect, with a distinguished cast led by Ambur Braid. 

The new General Director of Grand Théâtre de Genève discusses his plans for the upcoming season, reviving lesser-known pieces, and how audiences are thirsty for new experiences.

This season, new operas are depositing characters in limbo between this life and the next – from Lincoln in Missy Mazzoli’s Lincoln in the Bardo, to Bassem Akiki’s supernatural retelling of the life of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. 

The Austrian mezzo-soprano talks about her love of singing, her time as an ensemble member at the Wiener Staatsoper and exploring the boundaries of trouser roles.