Venue: Opéra-Comique, Paris

Tight orchestral playing, minimalist stage design: the conductor and director are perfectly in tune with each other, transforming Massenet's work into an intimate and timeless drama.

Grétry's mash-up of Beauty and the Beast and The Arabian Nights provides an evening of proper enchantment in Paris.

Excellent performances and stage direction make a good case for an opera that's on the slow side dramatically.

In Basil Twist's staging of Titon et l'Aurore, William Christie shows the breadth of his talent in 18th century French repertoire, conducting an cast which excels in both main and supporting roles.

Voices, orchestra staging: everything in this Ercole Amante is light and magic, to the great delight of the Salle Favart audience.

Hamlet lives! Ambroise Thomas' operatic take on The Bard has a particularly French ending but that doesn't spoil this terrific revival in Paris. 

An oriental sweetmeat from the pen of Henri Rabaud, based on a tale from The Arabian Nights, is revived triumphantly in Paris. 

Palazzetto Bru Zane, spurred on by the zealous advocacy of conductor François-Xavier Roth, has turned to Saint-Saëns' very first opera, Le Timbre d'argent.