Performer: Mark Le Brocq

Launching that most ambitious of endeavours, a Ring cycle, Grange Park Opera’s production of Das Rheingold proves a real achievement, led by the superb Alberich of David Stout.

Never has Brecht and Weill’s satire on the inhumanity of man to man been render with such utter darkness; Simon O’Neill heads up a superb cast.

Though musically flawed, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s choral work The Atonement is given a superb performance at the Three Choirs Festival in Hereford Cathedral. 

Longborough Festival Opera, built on Wagnerian foundations, stages the UK premiere of Avner Dorman’s ambitious cautionary tale about the Wagner clan and establishing the composer’s legacy. 

Orla Boylan’s creation oozes charisma and reeks of entitlement, driven to emotional cruelty by the lassitude of a life too-long lived.

Who wouldn't relish the chance of seeing a Ring cycle at close quarters? Longborough's Die Walküre isn't perfect, but it consistently delivers on the story and on character interpretation.