Work: Benvenuto Cellini

Thaddeus Strassberger’s Brussels debut presents Berlioz's opera semiseria with plenty of good music but far more visual noise. 

To mark the 150th anniversary of the composer's death, Sir John Eliot Gardiner conducts the opera charting the escapades of the Italian goldsmith and sculptor. 

The task sounded Herculean: turning Benvenuto Cellini, that reputedly difficult, flawed work by Berlioz, into an utterly entertaining show that renders justice to its youthfully energetic music. This is what Terry Gilliam manages to pull off... and it is nothing short of miraculous.