Performer: Neal Cooper

Joyce El-Khoury saves the day in The Royal Opera’s second revival of The Sicilian Vespers in Stefan Herheim’s paint-by-numbers production. 

Amid the rough winds of late May, Julia Burbach directs Opera Holland Park's first venture into Wagner – The Flying Dutchman. 

Using Jonathan Dove and Graham Vick's distillations of Siegfried and Götterdämmerung, the company concluded its miniature Ring cycle in under five hours, without sacrificing musical or dramatic tension.

For social distancing reasons, the Festival dispensed with a full staging of Wagner's epic love story, allowing singers and orchestra to share the stage in an able compromise.

As part of the annual Wagner festival in the Hungarian capital, Peter Seiffert and Allison Oakes star as the doomed lovers.