Performer: Daniel Ralphsson

Krisztian Lada's thoughtful production goes to the dark heart of ETA Hoffmann's stories, mixing Offenbach's deceptively cheerful music with staging that is always impactful and sometimes gross.

In his production of La traviata for the Swedish Royal Opera, Kasper Holten puts Violetta in a strip club and on the streets. Both the staging and the music are excellent, though the cast's acting is uneven.

An obsessively man-hating princess, a slave girl who really needs to open up a bit more about her feelings, a prince who actually fell in love at first sight, and an unhealthily large dose of exoticism? Why, it can only be Puccini’s Turandot.