Performer: Christophe Mortagne

With gloriously inventive sets and costumes, Alex Esposito’s splendid Four Villains drive a wonderfully entertaining new production.

The Royal Opera's season opener is a welcome return for Tchaikovsky's opera after nine years, and a house debut for American director Ted Huffman.

The star tenor is clearly under the weather, but the young house-favourite mezzo shines in an impressive role debut in a revival of Benoît Jacquot's cinematic staging. 

A human waxwork, a lottery win and circus buffoonery combine in a long-neglected Offenbach operetta, given a fizzing performance by the forces of Opera Rara and the London Philharmonic.

Comedy fails to spark in Laurent Pelly's new production of Falstaff at the Teatro Real. 

Robert Carsen's Eugene Onegin was binned by the Met but works wonderfully in its revival by the Canadian Opera Company COC with high class singing and acting from a young, engaging cast.