Venue: Opéra national de Paris: Opéra Bastille

Excellent vocal acting from Thomas Hampson, Renée Fleming, Xiaomeng Zhang and a magnificent orchestral performance conducted by Kent Nagano can't make Valentina Carrasco's production fully grip.

The French premiere of the British composer's opera will be the undisputed high point of the Grande Boutique's season: a perfect confluence of music, staging and cast.

Barrie Kosky's makes a limited impact in his debut at Opéra de Paris, apart from an hallucinogenic Polovtsian Dances.

The new production of Les Indes galantes at Opéra Bastille is exceptional, from the vocal cast to the choreography by Bintou Dembélé. But the stand-out performance of the evening comes from conductor Leonardo Garcia Alarcón.

Tcherniakov reduces Berlioz' epic to little more than Circle Time therapy, a poor way to mark the composer's anniversary year.

It's a big night at the Opéra Bastille for their 350th anniversary season; Oropesa's dazzling coloratura stops the show; Andreas Kriegenburg sets the action interestingly in a Star Trek future.

Krzysztof Warlikowski’s new Paris staging of Verdi's epic Don Carlos is cold and glassy, but the vocal performances at the Bastille more than compensate.

In April, Peter Mattei and Anna Netrebko were starring together in Eugene Onegin at the Metropolitan Opera. Less than a month later and they are reunited in Paris in Willy Decker's staging.