Performer: Nicholas Ransley

Singapore Lyric Opera’s new production of The Merry Widow, set in 1920s Paris, is weighed down by uninspired directorship. 

Howling, gusting wind. Damp, bitter cold. Dark, gathering twilight. Exactly the right atmosphere, you must agree, for Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor, based on Sir Walter Scott's romantic historical novel of dark deeds in the grim castles of the Scottish clans, which opened Opera Holland Park's new season.