Performer: Dante Ferretti

The Maggio postpones Pountney’s expected new production of Don Giovanni, presenting Ferrara’s production from Spoleto instead, with a good cast in the hands of Zubin Mehta.

Netrebko's Violetta is now fuller in body and voice than in her former incarnation. Goodbye to the fresh-faced damsel we saw in Salzburg; hello to a larger-than-life courtesan in her twilight years.

Suggesting that Otello was a migrant, like modern refugees, was not a great staging idea for a production which could count on an high-rate vocal cast.