Performer: Giancarlo del Monaco

The audience for The Met's first performance of La fanciulla del West this season arrived loaded for bear. Not only were they disappointed that Jonas Kaufmann was not singing (he's slated for shows starting 17th October), but their disappointment was heightened by the fact that tenor Yusif Eyvazov was singing.

The Met brought back a 20-year-old traditional production of Simon Boccanegra with a starry cast led by James Levine.

A relative rarity by Verdi is given an outing at the Sydney Opera House, with excellent performances let down by a disappointing staging. 

In Zurich, a dazzling production of Puccini's great Turandot gives us the stuff of torment, torture and all the other idiosyncracies of love at the executuve level.

A rich showcase of bel canto Romantic tragedy, this renewal of the Giancarlo del Monaco production made a vehicle for insights into jealousy, conscience, and deviousness “on a Royal scale”.

​In each case, you know the murder is coming. In each case the music is explosive and closes the opera: there is nothing left to say except Canio's simple words: "La commedia è finita.