Performer: Kate Valentine

Charles Villiers Stanford's The Travelling Companion is performed at Cadogan Hall by New Sussex Opera. 

In Anna Russell's wittily deadpan analysis of Wagner's Ring cycle, she describes Wotan as “the head god” – pausing for dramatic effect before adding “and he's a crashing bore too.”

Mahler's epic setting of the final scene from Goethe's Faust is so demanding of musical resources that any performance is a special occasion: what better work to conclude the Orchestra Of Opera North's triumphant 2015-2016 season? 

Sir Thomas Allen and Robert Murray give a compelling performance as the two soldiers in Britten's War Requiem. 

Smetana's The Bartered Bride by Opera North at Leeds Grand Theatre directed by Daniel Slater is a confident revival of an old success. 

Così fan tutte in a 1950s carnival setting. Visually spectacular, and with plenty of laughs. Not everything works, but still worth seeing, especially for Roderick Williams' spivvy Don Alfonso.