Performer: Chœur d'enfants de l'Opéra National de Paris

In Paris, Russian enfant terrible reunites Iolanta with The Nutcracker... with wildly mixed results. 

​In each case, you know the murder is coming. In each case the music is explosive and closes the opera: there is nothing left to say except Canio's simple words: "La commedia è finita.

Otello, Verdi’s penultimate opera, is a tightly-wound setting of Shakespeare’s familiar tragedy. From the opening storm to the title character dying upon a kiss, it is more fragmentary and emotionally cool than his earlier work, an opera that tends to be more admired than loved.