Keeping Up with the Prussians: an homage to Wilhelmine von Bayreuth with Hasse's Artaserse

Balázs Kovalik’s interpretation of Elektra is revived in Budapest, impressing until the B-movie cliché finale. 

Balázs Kovalik’s opulent staging of Boito's Faustian opera threatens to overshadow the singers, but it makes for an exciting spectacle.

The battle of the choirs is a thrilling moment in just about any performance of Dutchman, but produces shock and awe in the live acoustics of Budapest's Bartok Bela Concert Hall.

Hasse’s Artaserse in Munich was a pasticcio using music from that work to tell the story of Wilhelmine von Bayreuth and to celebrate of Anja Silja. 

Balázs Kovalik's new dystopian Turandot is musically rousing but let down by a production that's more 1970s TV series than slick modern sci-fi. 

Excitingly conducted and largely well-sung, this sumptuous but unfussy Turandot should please both traditionalist and adventurous operagoers.