Performer: Brian Galliford

Before the beginning of this new version of Mozart’s The Magic Flute from Simon McBurney, Complicite and English National Opera, one may wonder, looking at the stage, why it was recently hailed as the company’s most technically advanced creation to date: an austere, no-frills set consisting of a single suspended rectangular slab and a raised orchestra pit both reflect this production’s refreshing

Peter Grimes may deserve the place it has gained in the operatic canon, but it’s not a work without problems.

The new Netherlands Opera performance of Richard Wagner’s only comic opera Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg was an absolute success. Spanning a daunting four-and-a-half hours, the evening kept us wanting more rather than searching for the clock.

With sub-Ionesco doggerel for a libretto, a patchy score and a disjointed plot, it takes deft stage direction for farce and satire to blend credibly in Le grand macabre, Ligeti’s 1977 operatic spoof on doom-laden prophesizing.

With Verdi's centenary coming up, his last opera Falstaff has had more attention than usual, with this production at Opera Holland Park following hot on the heels of Robert Carsen's new production at Covent Garden.

Where could be more appropriate to see the story of Caligula, Rome’s most notorious emperor/self-proclaimed God, than in the Coliseum! Its purple SPQR livery made the opening to this performance all the more striking as Caligula, dishevelled, unhinged and not a little scary, crept on stage through the curtain in dead silence.