Performer: Stephanie Corley

Tim Albery's production for Opera North is well sung and superbly acted, involving us deeply in Janáček's tragic family drama.

Cole Porter's exuberant wordsmithery and his smash-and-grab appropriation of a dozen musical styles can hardly fail to entertain; Opera North give us four top class leads.

Jonathan Dove’s witty Flight at Scottish Opera is finely sung by a tight ensemble with standout performances from Jennifer France and James Laing.

The first UK production of Karl Amadeus Hartmann’s 1930s anti-war opera Simplicius Simplicissimus is a musical and dramatic triumph, and as pertinent as ever

James MacMillan has honed his first opera Inés de Castro into an unmissable evening:  unspeakably gory but utterly thrilling.

To end the 2012/13 season, Scottish Opera has teamed up with the D’Oyly Carte Company to create a crisp new production of The Pirates of Penzance, which heads off to England and Wales after touring Scotland.