Lombards but no crusade: Verdi's I Lombardi at UCOpera

At the Theatre Royal Stratford East, the student group made a convincing case for the French version of this gripping work.

Weather forecasters would have a meteorological field day with Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera The Snow Maiden. Freezing temperatures have prevailed for sixteen years, and the immediate outlook in the Prologue is for further isolated snow showers, before a warm front eventually sweeps in from the south during Act IV. 

One of the consistent joys of seeing a performance by the Royal Academy of Music's opera school is that they bring in world class conductors. At last night's La vera costanza, the orchestra, conducted by Trevor Pinnock, was exceptional.

Mark Ravenhill directs a brutal, bloody Salome for Regents Opera at the spiritual home of British boxing, York Hall. 

Robert Carsen's staging of Handel's oratorio arrives, via Salzburg, in the city where Handel composed it in 1707. 

At the Metropolitan Opera, Innocence proves a gripping and perhaps divisive piece which feels real because it is a reflection of our reality, with no realistic hope of finding peace.