Performer: Thomas Humphreys

A spirited and seamless production of Strauss’s Ariadne is aided by some excellent singing and playing at London’s premier summer opera festival.

An embarrassingly trite libretto proves unsalvageable, even with a committed cast of singers.

Using Stephen Medcalf’s 2008 staging, this opening night of love and loneliness was a feast for the eyes, a musical triumph and a dramatic tour-de-force that tugged at the heart strings.

A top-notch adaptation of a very scary folktale into a dynamic new opera, and an interesting meditation on cultural crisis in modern Iran, makes for a superb night at Tête à Tête. 

Tête-à-Tête's installation of four works is something of a curate's egg, but worth it for James Schouten's exhilarating Rock Tosca and Workshopera's visionary Boys of Paradise.