Performer: Giorgio Caoduro

Excellent singing, an amusing production and lively staging showcases Mascagni's Le maschere in the best possible light at Wexford Festival Opera. 

Martin G Berger exhaustively reworks the story and the libretto of Salieri's Cublai, gran kan de' Tartari and throws the kitchen sink at this new production, but not everything lands well. 

The Armenian-Australian soprano steps in for an indisposed Ermonela Jaho in Rosetta Cucchi's staging of Cilea's verismo masterpiece. 

Rossini's 1816 farce fails to make a splash as Marco Carniti's frenetic staging returns to Pesaro. 

Tara Erraught stars as the eponymous heroine with Anna Devin as her nemesis Elizabeth I in Donizetti's Maria Stuarda, but Tom Creed's modern update fails to convince at the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin. 

A successful new production of the maestro’s opera buffaat the Rossini Opera Festival with a solid cast led by Marina Monzó.