Prima Donna and Music Master, all images Alastair Muir

Thomas Allen was — need I say it — superb in every sense, with excellent German enunciation, well matched by that of William Relton’s Major Domo, who exhibited just the right amount of supercilious command. Kate Lindsey, making her Glyndebourne debut, and indeed her debut in the role of the composer, gave a fine portrayal of creative tension. She became so plaintive in exasperation at the philistines around her that the pretty Zerbinetta of Laura Claycomb clearly felt obliged to shoosh away her acting troupe, and then cleverly manipulate the young man. It was all delightfully staged, and Ms Claycomb’s high soprano gave a lovely contrast to the strong baritone of Dmitri Vargin as Harlequin.

As the first act came to an end the sprinkling of military uniforms came into focus with a 1940 German air raid. Bombers were seen through the window, and flames engulfed part of the rear stage. Pandemonium.

Composer after the air raid

Setting it in an English country house is a fine idea, but bringing in the Germans to bomb the place is an odd thing to do. One might wonder at the unconscious motivation of German director Katharina Thoma, but motivations aside the result detracts rather than adds to the opera. Several months have passed since Act I, and Zerbinetta and her troupe are performers from ENSA brought in to cheer up the hospital inmates. The nymphs are nurses, Bacchus a wounded airman, and Zerbinetta a bisexual nympho who is tied up in a straight-jacket after trying it on with one of the nursing staff. Ms Thoma claims she wants to “explore how art and artists … interact with reality”, but in doing so she has taken the two levels that Richard Strauss so cleverly combined, and added a third one that disturbs the balance. This conceit foiled Zerbinetta’s cleverness, giving a rather tiresome spin to Act II.

Nurses tie up Zerbinetta

Fortunately, although Sergey Skorokhodov as Bacchus seemed to lose his voice and pitch at times, Vladimir Jurowski in the orchestra pit and Soile Isokoski as Ariadne fully brought out the magic of Richard Strauss’s music.

Performances continue until July 11 — for details click here.

First tableau, all images ROH/ Bill Cooper

As Beethoven once said to Rossini, “Give us more Barbers”, and this interestingly nuanced Scottish story based on the narrative poem by Sir Walter Scott has never really held the stage. Yet it contains some wonderful vocal writing, and Covent Garden brought in the singers to do it full justice. All five principals had performed together before at La Scala (and four of them also in Paris) in a production that the Royal Opera abandoned in favour of doing their own, but more on that later.

From her early aria expressing love for Malcom, to her late realisation that her admirer Uberto is really the king, and her overwhelming gratitude to him for bringing her father and lover together, Joyce DiDonato showed exquisitely crafted emotion with effortless vocal flourishes. With Juan Diego Flores showing heartfelt emotion and huge nobility of character, the two of them provided a feast of vocal brilliance, and his long aria at the start of Act II, O fiamma soave where he expresses his love for Elena, brought the house down.

The other three principals were all making their debuts at Covent Garden. Italian mezzo Daniela Barcellona as Malcom gave a fine portrayal of a rough and ready young warrior, and her duet with Elena in Act I showed immense tenderness on both sides. Simón Orfila as Elena’s father Duglas showed great strength of tone, and Michael Spyres as her would-be fiancé, Rodrigo sang beautifully without apparently altering the vocal pitch at any point, covering the huge tessitura demanded by this role. His stage presence was excellent, and the trio with Elena and Uberto where the two tenors hurl high Cs at one another, was a vocal delight. At this point smartly dressed men with brollies appear from behind, and two gentlemen in top hats take down huge swords from the walls, bringing them to stage centre.

The king reveals all

That brings us to the production by in-house director John Fulljames, who seems to have followed Stalin’s (or was it Robespierre’s) dictum that you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs. Some were good, some bad, but the over-riding purpose seems to have been to frame the whole thing as an old myth kitted out for performance at a Scottish gentlemen’s club. Elena started in a glass case, and Malcom and Duglas ended up in two other cases. In the meantime the director tried to add flashes of local colour with a gratuitous rape scene late in Act I, part of which looked like a version of the Eton Wall Game, and in the final scene when Uberto opens a screen to reveal the throne room, we see an Alice in Wonderland vision: a courtroom with musicians dressed in tartan, and male and female chorus dressed as nineteenth century male lawyers. A huge tartan screen drops to hide the dead bodies hanging behind.

Final tableau

For a little-known opera like this one needs a straightforward production rather than a too-clever-by-half adaptation, but go for the conducting by Michele Mariotti and the brilliant singing — you may never hear it done better.

Performances continue until June 11 — for details click here.

Acosta as Solor © BillCooper

Carlos Acosta as Solor came over as a decent fellow placed in an impossible position by Christopher Saunders as the Rajah. Hikaru Kobayashi as his daughter Gamzatti, and Marianela Nuñez as the temple dancer Nikiya, were young women out of their depth in the circumstances, and the huge emotional energy they brought to their fateful meeting in Act I set the scene for the tragedy that ensued. Sparks flew between them and things got easily out of hand. Huge emotional commitment too from Gary Avis as the High Brahmin desperately protesting his love to Nikiya when he finds she’s involved with Solor.

The cowed scheming of Genesia Rosato as Gamzatti’s servant Aya suggested that the deadly snake in the basket of flowers for Nikiya was given on the orders of the Rajah, but interfering with emotional power is a dangerous game and the forces of nature eventually take control with the earthquake at the end.

In the meantime there were some terrific performances. In Act I, Acosta’s pas-de-deux with each girl had an engaging gentleness, and he showed effortless control in his big solo. The entrance of the shades in Act II, so choreographically simple, was beautifully performed, and there were lovely solos by the three main shades, Yuhui Choe, Elizabeth Harrod and Claire Calvert. Choe showed a wonderful lightness in the first variation, and Harrod coped beautifully with the very slow tempos in parts of the second variation. Acosta danced his solo with a beautifully relaxed ease and grace, and Nuñez turned simple choreography into magic, as with her chainé turns towards the end. These two gave an airy perfection to Solor’s dream world, before the denouement of the third act.

In Act III, after Valentino Zucchetti danced a wonderfully precise and mechanical Bronze Idol, the drama of the story returned. Excellent hesitancy from Acosta, and fine nervous tension from Kobayashi, foreshadowed the destruction of their world, rounding off a performance of enormous commitment from the whole company. Fine conducting by Valeriy Ovsyanikov allowed Minkus’s music to inspire the dancers, and if you can get tickets there is one further performance with the same three leading principals.

This is on May 22 — for details click here.

Captain, Wozzeck, Doctor, all images ENO/ Tristram Kenton

Recovering the knife he used, and attempting to get rid of it in the lake, he drowns, so the play’s ending reflects Wozzeck’s mental state of drowning in abuse and the ill effects of the Doctor’s experiments. In this new production by Carrie Cracknell, Wozzeck slits Marie’s throat and later his own, so the imagery of the lake disappears, though it remains in the text, and the final scene with Marie’s little boy blithely playing on his hobby-horse is replaced with the boy’s portrayal as slightly older and taunted by other children. But these quibbles aside the production works very well indeed. Tom Scutt’s excellent designs, showing us the inside of various rooms, all in one set, give a claustrophobic feel to the drama, amplified by performing it with no interval.

The transfer to the modern world of British soldiers at war, with coffins draped in Union Jacks, and Wozzeck’s friend Andres as a one-legged amputee, helps bring it all to life. Wozzeck and Andres, suffering post-traumatic stress disorder, are running drugs hidden in toy dinosaurs, and Marie is an attractively sexy young woman. The earrings the Drum Major gives her glitter their disdain of Wozzeck, and I prefer the naturalness of this production to stagings that over-emphasise the strange behaviour of the Doctor and Captain.

The killing of Marie

Leigh Melrose gave a wonderfully sympathetic portrayal of Wozzeck, Sara Jakubiak sang an impressively beautiful Marie, and James Morris was a powerful force as the Doctor. All six principals came over strongly, with Tom Randle a strong presence as a tattooed and half naked Captain, Bryan Register a tough looking Drum Major and Adrian Dwyer as the maimed Andres. Good support from the chorus and other cast members including an impressive Clare Presland as Marie’s neighbour Margret.

The original three acts, each split into five scenes, become a sequence of fifteen scenes in this illuminating production, and a helpful synopsis in the programme delineates not only the course of action but the musical character of each scene. Musically this was stunning. Edward Gardner produced wonderful playing from the orchestra, and the two crescendos after Marie’s death were beautifully carried aloft like birds of prey observing the tragedy below. Gardner cleverly had the musicians hold their instruments in playing position at the end, allowing a moment’s silence to savour Berg’s remarkable music before the applause erupted.

Unquestionably worth seeing, with performances continuing until May 25 — for details click here.

All images ROH/ Tristram Kenton

Scarlett’s ballet is set in 1950s America, and by coincidence the big news story of the moment concerns three women imprisoned in a dungeon in Ohio. Such things are real, and in the world Scarlett has created the children’s father is out of work and the house they live in up for sale. The mother returns from her job as a waitress and a massive row develops. The children are terrified, but then wild things happen; the Sandman appears and lures them to a small hut in a playground, which serves as an entrance to the witch’s lair underneath.

Children, Sandman and Witch

Steven McRae brilliantly portrayed the Sandman as a puppet with a mouth like a ventriloquist’s dummy, and the programme contains a picture of that famous American dummy Charlie McCarthy looking into his ‘sister’s’ crib. Spooky. The Sandman is an alter ego for Brian Maloney’s crazy but vulnerable witch, and the children are trapped. Gretel manages to escape from a rabbit hutch where the Sandman has locked her in … she takes a knife to a small Sandman doll and all hell breaks loose. The children get away, and after a struggle with the Sandman the Witch goes to lie with the dead body in the oven.

Step-mother and father

This is a riveting tale of anxiety, compulsion, strange desires and even simple sexual excitement between the washed out father of Bennet Gartside and the lustful energy of Laura Morera as his wife. They fail to find the children, and when the house is sold she’s out of there, with him. When the children return Gretel takes the SOLD sign and turns it round to say Home Sweet Home. Yet still the Sandman creeps back because night-time is a time for dreams, and it was a dream wasn’t it? Or was it?

James Hay and Leanne Cope were superb as Hansel and Gretel, and Scarlett’s glorious choreography fitted beautifully into the confined spaces created by Jon Bausor’s clever designs. In fact Scarlett talks of this as a collaborative venture with his designer, along with composer Dan Jones whose music displayed an eerie quality that fitted the Linbury Studio in a way that some other music has not.

Gretel and Sandman

Wonderfully effective lighting by Paul Keogan added to this coherent, intriguing and disturbing work, all hallmarks of Liam Scarlett’s extraordinary talent. It was his first full length ballet, and I look forward in the future to one in the main House. In the meantime I am hugely enthusiastic about my return visit on Saturday to see the second cast.

Performances continue until May 11, but were sold out shortly after booking opened — for details click here.

Kate and Eleanor, all images Johan Persson

He on the other hand, after being a faithful husband for ages, thinks he can have a ménage à trois with a sexy girl they both know. At first Eleanor allows it, condones it, even encourages it, perhaps out of guilt for her own dalliances, and even in Part II is still in denial, “James won’t fall in love, he has too much self-esteem”. But in the end it is too much, and as she says, “I had no cards left, except my life”. How does it all go so wrong?

James and Eleanor

This we learn through the characters Nell and Jim representing the inner selves of Eleanor and James. Samantha Bond as Nell is a determinedly intelligent woman, and Oliver Cotton as Jim is a slightly more tortured version of the affable, carefree James, who thinks himself so clever, denying the existence of things like love that others take for granted. His girlfriend, Annabel Scholey as Kate feels an intellectual pygmy by comparison, but she has something he completely lacks … let us not call it emotional intelligence, but shrewdness. She enjoys sex, and has tried a threesome, but what she really enjoys is the game, the manipulation of others. A hedonistic, amoral woman who “parks on double yellow lines, and goes straight to the front of the queue”, her devil-may-care attitude obviously appeals to him, but devils are a dangerous force, and we are left seeing him accede to their cunning, and dread how he may end up.

Eleanor and James are both in denial, she about his yearning for Kate, and he about his own emotional inadequacies. But while she has Sian Thomas as Agnes to warn her — a friend whose husband was previously purloined by Kate — he has no-one but himself, and even sends Eleanor to a psychiatrist.

Nell and Eleanor

The excellent acting under David Leveaux’s direction suggested life for the unsympathetic James would go deservedly pear-shaped, for it was he who expected too much, while Zoë Wanamaker as the foolish Eleanor gave a portrayal deserving our deepest sympathy.

Performances continue until August 3 — for details click here.

Queen of the Night, © ROH/ Mike Hoban

As her daughter Pamina, Sophie Bevan — recently voted Best Young Singer at the Opera Awards — exuded a lovely lightness of being, both vocally and in her stage presence. Her Mann und Weib duet with Simon Keenlyside’s Papageno was a charming vignette, beautifully staged with Paule Constable’s warm lighting. Keenlyside himself was a delightful Papageno, whose funny accent in German helped emphasise his simple nature. His singing was wonderful, his movement superb and those little jumps — terrific. He was also very funny, banging into a stone wall by accident at one point.

By contrast, Tamino, so well controlled in his quest for a beautiful wife, was sung and acted with huge sincerity by Andrew Staples. The three main characters in their wish for a partner on life’s journey could hardly be better, and Matthew Rose spoke with great authority as Sarastro, though his singing failed to carry the same weight in the lower register. His presence was excellent however, and the movement and staging by Leah Hausman in this revival of David McVicar’s production was beautifully done. Congratulations also to the Opera House for dedicating this revival to the memory of that fine Mozart conductor, Colin Davis.

Conducting by Julia Jones was assured but lacked a lightness of touch, and I would have preferred more sparkle between singers and orchestra.

Performances with this cast continue until May 9 — for details click here.

If you haven’t the time or stomach for a five-act opera leave well alone, but if you can feel the emotional depth that Verdi gives to historical forces this was a performance not to be missed. Surely music director Antonio Pappano is the man to thank. Yes, he has a fine orchestra and world-class singers for this production, but uniting them to scale the heights of emotional expression in Verdi’s score is a superb achievement.

When Mariusz Kwiecien as the honourable Rodrigo dies and Philip II enters to say Chi rende a me quell’uom? (Who will give me back this man?) there is a moment of expectation that the Church has overplayed its hand … but the sudden entrance of the Grand Inquisitor demanding obeisance to the king is a masterstroke. The Church reigns supreme, and the powerful chorus in Act III along with priests raising crosses and lording it over heretics who have had their tongues cut out — all this is reminiscent of fanaticism in the world today, manipulated by political will, theological disingenuity, and sectarian determination. An opera for our time, methinks.

Jonas Kaufmann as Don Carlo

Among the singers, the vocally nuanced portrayal of Philip II by Ferruccio Furlanetto seems to have reached new heights of expression in the second revival of this Nicholas Hytner production, and Eric Halfvarson as Grand Inquisitor showed the youthful fire that one energised this old man who now commands the forces of darkness, relieved at the end only by the ghost of Charles V, in the person of Robert Lloyd. By contrast the moving sincerity of Anja Harteros as Elisabeth was a lovely thing to behold as she reached beyond superb vocal technique to express a full gamut of emotions. She could allow her voice to fade away to nothing after recalling the sublime meeting with Jonas Kaufmann as Don Carlo, who brought a gloriously revealing pathos to this vocally demanding role. Here was singing with a superbly gentle quality, quite different from the harsh impenitence of Princess Eboli by Béatrice Uria-Monzon, replacing Christine Rice. When she showed her stripes at the start of Act III, Mariusz Kwiecien as Rodrigo expressed his restrained fury, and his powerful singing of the role showed a nobility of life and purpose so sadly to be snuffed out by one the Grand Inquisitor’s men.

This opera fully expresses the poetic — but not historical — truth of Schiller’s play, and the 1886 version, written nearly 20 years after the Paris premiere of 1867, forms a marvellous artistic unity. With an incomparable cast at Covent Garden it’s a sell-out.

Performances continue until May 25, with Roberto Aronica replacing Jonas Kaufmann in the last two, and Lianna Haroutounian replacing Anja Harteros for the last four — for details click here.

Stephano, Caliban, Trinculo, all images Marc Brenner

Prospero and Caliban

His sorcery and serious soliloquies must be set against the machinations of fools, and the folly of clowns, with Sam Cox as Stephano the star of the show in this sense. His hubris, his accent and his sense of comic timing formed a merry counterblast to the depth of Prospero, making it amusingly absurd that he should contemplate murdering and supplanting him. His partners in folly, the colourfully wild Caliban of James Garnon and the tiredly inebriated Trinculo of Trevor Fox, brilliantly helped offset the mighty men who are really such dullards. The audience loved it, and Trinculo’s backwards fall into the crowd after Stephano bids him return to the stage was a delight.

Gentle music by Stephen Warbeck for a spirit world in which the sprightly figure of Ariel was gracefully portrayed by Colin Morgan. His ability to move by swinging like a monkey, and his appearance as a harpy, were extraordinary. Pip Donaghy made a worthily honest counsellor as Gonzalo, and Jessie Buckley and Joshua James, as Miranda and Ferdinand, formed a suitably callow young couple, demonstrating their attraction for one another.

Playing The Tempest on a stage open to the sky on a beautiful sunny afternoon is a feat in itself and Stephano, Trinculo and Caliban in particular made excellent use of an occasional low-flying aircraft. Their magically entertaining performances, contrasted with Roger Allam’s intriguing mix of secret knowledge and uncertain vulnerability, gave a fine start to the Globe’s 2013 season.

This production gives huge clarity to Shakespeare’s work, and performances continue until August 18 — for more details click here.

Fidelio: opens 25 September 2013 for 7 performances. New production by Calixto Bieito (co-production with Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich), conducted by Edward Gardner. Bieito produced ENO’s recent Carmen, and his idea for Fidelio puts the performers in an ultra-modern looking labyrinth.

Die Fledermaus: opens 30 September 2013 for 11 performances. New production in modern costumes by Christopher Alden (co-production with Canadian Opera Company), conducted by Eun Sun Kim.

Canadian Opera Company © Chris Hutcheson

Madam Butterfly: opens 14 October 2013 for 14 performances. Revival of the wonderful Anthony Minghella production (co-production with the Met, and the Lithuanian National Opera), conducted by Gianluca Marciano and Martin Fitzpatrick.

The Magic Flute: opens 7 November 2013 for 12 performances. New production by Simon McBurney (co-production with De Nederlandse Opera, Amsterdam and International Festival of Lyric Art, Aix-en-Provence), conducted by Gergely Madaras.

De Nederlandse Opera, Clärchen & Matthias Baus

Satyagraha: opens 20 November 2013 for 6 performances. Revival of Phelim McDermott’s 2010 production (co-production with the Met), with Alan Oke again as Gandhi. Conductor tba.

Peter Grimes: opens 29 January 2014 for 8 performances. Revival of David Alden’s production (co-production with De Vlaamse Opera, Opera de Oviedo and Deutsche Oper Berlin), with Stuart Skelton again as Grimes, conducted by Edward Gardner.

Rigoletto: opens 13 February 2014 for 11 performances. New production by David Alden (co-production with Canadian Opera Company), conducted by Graeme Jenkins. Artistic director John Berry predicts fireworks on opening night.

Canadian Opera Company © Michael Cooper

Rodelinda: opens 28 February 2014 for 8 performances. New production by Richard Jones (co-production with the Bolshoi Opera), conducted by Christian Curnyn.

Powder Her Face: opens 2 April 2014 for 9 performances at Ambika P3 (Univ. of Westminster, Marylebone Rd). New production by Joe Hill-Gibbins of this early Thomas Adès opera about the Duchess of Argyll. Conductor tba.

Thebans: opens 3 May 2014 for 8 performances. World Premiere directed by Pierre Audi (co-production with Bonn Oper), conducted by Edward Gardner who considers the composer Julian Anderson is doing really exciting work. This is on Sophocles’ Theban Trilogy (Oedipus/ Oedipus at Colonus/ Antigone).

Cosi Fan Tutte: opens 16 May 2014 for 12 performances. New production by Katie Mitchell (co-production with the Met), conducted by Ryan Wigglesworth.

Terry Gilliam © Richard Hubert Smith

Benvenuto Cellini: opens 5 June 2014 for 8 performances. New production by Terry Gilliam (a co-production with De Nederlandse Opera, Amsterdam), conducted by Edward Gardner. In 2011 Gilliam gave us a great ENO production of another Berlioz opera, The Damnation of Faust.

Terry Gilliam © Richard Hubert Smith

The Pearl Fishers: opens 16 June 2014 for 9 performances. Revival of Penny Woolcock’s 2010 production, with some changes. Conductor tba.

River of Fundament: opens 29 June 2014 for 3 viewings. A film/opera project by artist Matthew Barney and composer Jonathan Bepler, it deals with the ancient Egyptian myths from death to rebirth of the soul.

River of Fundament