Performer: Eberhard Friedrich

Despite many perceptive details, Bayreuth's new Ring culminates in a rather damp squib of an ending.

Kent Nagano and the forces of Staatsoper Hamburg launch their new season with a production of Shostakovich's very first opera in which the ears are beguiled but the eyes are not.

From stylised 16th-century dress to a 1970s sitcom ballet, Konwitschny's Staatsoper staging is full of brilliantly inventive touches, splendidly realised in this excellently sung revival. 

Hamburg's revival of a 2015 production is a musical success, but the director's concepts are sometimes too dense to tell a straightforward story.

Hamburg State Opera launches its new season with a visually overpowering but musically satisfying Così fan tutte.

Attila Jun's outstanding Hagen and Catherine Foster's sublime Brünnhilde light up the last episode of Frank Castorf's puzzling Ring.