Why go to Padua in the heart of the winter, travelling five hours by train, and looking at a sad barren landscape of the Veneto to listen to an opera?

A standard evening at New York’s Metropolitan Opera is a healthy reminder why this opera house is casually referred to as the “Mighty Met”. The reprise of this Mefistofele production by Robert Carsen, last seen nearly twenty years ago, was

Teatro “Cesare Caporali” sits in Panicale Umbria. Panicale is a jewel of a historic town as so many are in Umbria. You’ve never heard of it just as I’ve never heard of it either until 4 years ago, in spite

Paris does glamour better than anyone. But clearly not at the opera. The Opéra National de Paris at the Bastille still looks like a second-tier suburban cinemaplex and the audience looks accordingly. Opening night has no dress code, no glamour,

This summer’s Salzburg Festival chatter was dominated by the enthusiastic reviews of the new production of Richard Strauss’ Salome and its new star soprano Asmik Grigorian.

Madrid pulled together an absolute dream production of Gaetano Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, with a cast few houses could even think about. This production by David Alden, first commissioned for the English National Opera in 2008, sets the scene in

Berlin’s Deutsche Oper, the opera company based in the Western section of the formerly divided city, put on grand opera at its most opulent with Amilcare Ponchielli’s La Gioconda. Rarely performed these days due to the work’s staggering length, large

On 18 and 21 July, Sir Mark Elder conducts concert performances of the world premiere of an opera that was previously thought to have been consigned to oblivion: Donizetti’s L’Ange de Nisida.