Performer: Tuomas Pursio

Finnish National Opera and Ballet’s season opens with an earthy new production of Verdi's perennial favourite, Aida, given a contemporary setting where even the victors suffer. 

Christof Loy’s psychological staging returns to the stage of Finnish National Opera, with Swedish soprano Elisabet Strid compelling in the title role. 

Christof Loy unearths hidden treasure with an opera by Franz Schreker long since buried after taking Europe by storm in the 1920s.

A new production of Lohengrin at Oper Leipzig is conceived as an intimate chamber opera and succeeds with brilliant musical performances.

For any opera house, the production of a new Wagner Ring cycle is a huge undertaking and becomes a mission statement. For Finnish National Opera, its mission is to stage an all-Finnish Ring.

In an unusually convincing concert performance, Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Finnish National Opera emphasised the lyrical aspects of Wagner's Das Rheingold.