Michael Higgs

A charming adaptation of Herman Melville’s masterpiece, Sebastian Armesto’s Moby Dick mixes music and drama in an effective, atmospheric production that never gets lost at sea, no matter how daunting a task it is to stage the novel.

Albery’s revival of his Flying Dutchman simply works: with a great cast and a smooth atmosphere created by a dreamlike ship-inspired set, it all builds towards a Gesamtkunstwerk that Wagner might have enjoyed himself. A great success, all around.

Edward Lambert's Duchess of Padua is packed full with stunning music that brings Oscar Wilde's early melodramatic epic of love and revenge to life.

Kenneth MacMillan's Manon is a haunting exploration of desire and sexuality, contrasting pompous extravagance with the poverty of the masses.

Antony McDonald's production simply oozes glamour and matches perfectly the opera’s quintessentially Romantic music. Eerie forests cast in twilight, cluttered huts, and old-fashioned costumes mix and mingle to give audiences a feeling of watching something straight out of the 19th century.

Mears’s production demonstrates a keen feel for drama and a genuinely brilliant reading of Verdi’s opera; when juxtaposed with a musical interpretation as potent as this, it’s a production not likely to be forgotten.

It maintains the opera’s timeless charm, strong wit, and with a cast that never takes itself seriously, leads to an evening that has the audience roaring with laughter.

A strong score, neat production by Mehmet Ergen and an excellent cast make it worth a watch, even if it has several plot-related issues

A mixed beast that roars when it comes to the music but is ultimately let down by issues surrounding the conception and dramaturgical realisation.

Emphasising monochromatic melancholy with singers who do their best despite swimming in an ocean of drab uniforms.

Focusing on uncontroversial flamboyance, Richard Jones’s revival of his 2017 production of La bohème is a visual spectacle with plenty to please the eye.

Ever since its first production in 1881, Gilbert and Sullivan’s Patience has brought its audiences to tears of laughter, and this production by Charles Court Opera is no exception.

This historical revival of Handel’s Serse particularly emphasises the humorous aspects of the opera, thereby creating a wonderfully entertaining spectacle from start to finish.

What is love? It's a question that has plagued philosophers and poets for as long as humans have existed. Unfortunately, we are no closer to finding any meaningful answers to this question in Mel Masry's shallow and unsatisfying play.

Richard Wagner had many strong ideas when it came to music, especially his operas. Reducing the runtime to a mere 60 minutes and concentrating on excerpts that focus on the love story between the titular characters, is Japanese choreographer and dancer Saburo Teshigawara’s adaptation a success?