Performer: Mirko Roschkowski

A typically thought-provoking production of The Trojans from Calixto Bieito combines with a thrilling musical performance to compensate for a heavily fileted version of Berlioz's magnum opus.

Hoffmann goes Steampunk: Renaud Doucet’s staging for the Volksoper is the exception to the sensible rule that “less is more”.

How to stage The Abduction from the Seraglio in Vienna, a city not exactly known for its sensitivity towards its Turkish minority? Mozart’s opera doesn’t, it should be said, contain nearly as much politically incorrect embarrassment as the rhetoric of some of Austria’s modern-day political parties, but the abusive boor Osmin and the Western women enslaved by his short-fused ganglord are images whi