Performer: Sarah Fahie

Henry Neill gives a devastating performance as Sam in Trouble in Tahiti in The Royal Opera’s Bernstein double bill in the Linbury Theatre. 

The Armenian soprano sweeps all before her in a delightfully controlled, touching performance, enhanced by a voice that would melt the stoniest of hearts. 

Martyn Brabbins conducts an excellent ENO orchestra and consistently good ensemble cast as Richard Jones delivers a wealth of narrative detail to introduce Wagner's Ring.

No hippos in tutus for The Dance of the Hours, but panto frolics abound in Stephen Madcalf's staging in the idyllic Theatre in the Woods. 

Breastplates are back in vogue, but comedy horses and cheap production values undermine the first chapter in English National Opera's new Ring cycle. 

Christine Rice gives an astonishingly performance in an evening of four powerful chamber pieces.