Opera seems to be getting more diverse every year, with more new repertoire coming to the fore and directors and designers using an ever-increasing bag of tricks to bring operas visually to life. 2019 has been a great year for the world's opera houses and we're privileged to have been permitted to reproduce photos by some outstanding performance photographers. Here is a somewhat arbitrary selection of a dozen favourites from the year – although honestly, I had many other great shots to choose from.
Wilfried Hösl
Krenek's Karl V. at Bavarian State Opera, February
Designer Lita Cabellut's off the wall, disturbing designs must have felt like a gift to the photographer in Carlus Padrissa's new production of Krenek's twelve-tone historical drama.
Read Norman Schwarze's review (in German)
Jeff Busby
Wagner's Parsifal at Victorian Opera, February
Busby perfectly captures Wagner's male fantasy of being surrounded by a gaggle of adoring maidens, as well as our hero's decidedly ambivalent response.
Karen Almond
Verdi's Falstaff at The Metropolitan Opera, February
As well as new productions, 2019 had its share of the tried and tested. The Met's Falstaff featured two of the most established musical comedians in their roles: Almond picks up both the interplay between them and the period gorgeousness of Paul Steinberg's set and Brigitte Reiffenstuel's costumes.
Clive Barda
Handel's Berenice at the Royal Opera House for London Handel Festival, March
Hannah Clark's sets may have been basic, but several of Barda's photos turn them into pure eye candy. This shot captures three things in one: the opulent Handel-era costume, a beautiful sense of line and shape where the performer combines with the background and the general pained expression (Dame Joan Sutherland used to refer to her "GPE") on Claire Booth's face.
Robert Workman
Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia at Glyndebourne, May
The rich colours and interesting shapes in Annabel Arden's three year old production provide excellent material for Workman's lens: this picture also beautifully illustrates Rossini's slapstick.
Sakari Viika
Debussy's Pélléas et Mélisande at Finnish National Opera, May
Viika focuses on the essentials here, with plenty of negative space to make us zero in on the protagonists and make us painfully aware of the tense intimacy between them: unwanted on Mélisande's side, intensely desired on Golaud's.
Karl Forster
Verdi's Rigoletto at Bregenz Festival, July
You can generally rely on Bregenz to use their extraordinary setting to spring surprises on you on the grand scale. But they have truly outdone themselves with the grotesquery of this year's Rigoletto, playing brilliantly to the dark side of Verdi's character.
Read Sarah Batschelet's review
Tristram Kenton
Martinů's The Greek Passion at Opera North in Leeds, September
You don't often see great photos of opera choruses: in this one, Kenton has showed a perfect eye for the unusual shapes created by the choruses and the plaster effigies representing the refugees in Martinů's powerful polemic.
Ralph Larmann
Wagner's Das Rheingold at Finnish National Opera, September
The world of Norse myth has inspired countless works of fantasy, both before Wagner and after: Larmann has produced a striking image which taps directly into our childhood memories of tales of evil gnomes and dwarves.
Kelly & Massa
Prokofiev's Love for Three Oranges at Opera Philadelphia, September
The surrealism in Prokofiev's comedy always inspires directors and designers: in this photo, Brent MIchael Smith's whiteface disturbs as much it entertains.
Agathe Poupeney
Grétry's Richard Cœur de Lion at Opéra Royal de Versailles, October
There are times when the best thing to do with a baroque opera is to present a tableau, and there aren't many better places to do it than the Royal Opera House in the Palace of Versailles. Poupeney gives us the big picture of what it was like to be there.
Read Stéphane Lilièvre's review (in French)
Herwig Prammer
Handel's Belshazzar at Zurich Opera, November
Prammer puts us right in the middle of Sebastian Baumgarten's "visual bombardment", with a brilliantly lit, whip-wielding Cyrus on a giant cat, huddled masses in the foreground and Rembrandt's famous image behind.
