Performer: David Bazika

Glorious music and excellent singing can't mask a simplistic staging of Smetana's last opera, an uneasy combination of rom-com and medieval legend. 

Donatienne Michel-Dansac is great in the lead at the Ostrava Days new music festival, leering, boasting and swaggering convincingly as the former US President. 

Despite the fact that few (if any) in the audience could understand ancient Greek, the emotions of the characters, and particularly the desperation of Mr Falk's Kassandra, came through with astonishing intensity.