Performer: Martin Kušej

Asmik Grigorian leads a searing performance in Martin Kušej’s 15-year-old, yet ever-fresh, outstanding production of Dvořák's opera.

Martin Kušej gives Mozart and Da Ponte's commedia per musica a sinister mafia setting, which is low on laughs but outstandingly performed, led by Lea Desandre's charismatic Cherubino.

Many scenes could risk to be particularly disturbing,  but their overt brutality appeared functional, to the structure of the drama. A dark, gloomy story as unambiguously told as it should be.

An updating of Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail to the post-World War One era in a desert fails to inspire in Aix. 

Martin Kušej's production of La forza del destino is hard hitting and intelligent: an imperfect orchestral performance is more than compensated for by an outstanding cast of singers.

“Here be dragons!” warned seafaring maps of yore, denoting uncharted territories. Martin Kušej, undertaking his first Royal Opera exploration, excised the sea monster from his vision of Mozart’s Idomeneo.