Performer: Sergei Aleksashkin

Rodion Shchedrin's opera mixes singing, choreography and storytelling to lend a potent sacred and mystic overlay to Nikolai Leskov's folk tale.

Mikhail Kazakov gives a compelling portrayal of the troubled Tsar Boris, as Gergiev and the Mariinsky provide a great showcase for one of the masterworks of Russian music.

The Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff celebrates its 10th anniversary this autumn, and as part of the celebrations the Mariinsky Opera, under its conductor Valery Gergiev, was invited back for a concert performance of Prokofiev’s comic opera, Betrothal in a Monastery.

It can't be often that a poet declares that the selection and setting of his words to music has turned them into better poetry.

As a big Shostakovich fan, I was very excited when I found out that his 13th Symphony ('Babi Yar') would be performed this season. It's a work that does not appear that often in concert halls, probably because it not only requires a large orchestra, but also a more-than-adept bass soloist and male chorus.

Read our review of Robert Carsen's production of  Pushkin­'s Onegin in its 2007 broadcast from the Met Opera in New York.