James Imam

Yet, after initial vim and vigour, it soon felt as if the electric plug had been disconnected. Fruit-laden carts rolling sadly across the stage were unlikely to harness the inebriating currents of Rossini’s score. The biggest problem was cumbersome playing.

If Chailly has occasionally stumbled since arriving at La Scala, perhaps this very fine reading will win over detractors.

The static nature of the staging limits its impact, but this is mitigated by the glorious aural wash provided by conductor Franz Welser-Möst. Lithe and suave, he assuredly steers Strauss’s leviathan score through rapturous climaxes, impressionistic hues and bellicose eruptions.

That was owed partly to the brilliance of Robert Carsen’s production, which relocates Nicola Francesco Haym’s libretto, depicting rival Roman factions in civil-war-torn ancient Egypt, to a modern-day Middle East occupied by western armed forces.

The singers rise above it all. Salome Jicia burst on to the scene at the ROF three years ago. Rather than being regal, her Semiramide combines vocal brilliance and blade with edgy dramatisation in an everyday picture of emotional strain.

The Herculean Fabio Sartori packed a mighty vocal punch, fitting for this all-guns-blazing production, and showed he is acquiring stage presence to match the brawn. Michele Pertusi made the thankless role of Massimiliano engaging, but Massimo Cavalletti’s voice was a size too small for the dastardly Francesco.

Alan Gilbert, conducting the score for the first time, drew alert if never ravishing playing. Unusually, Vick’s staging was the driving force for Korngold’s opera on this occasion.

Even Franz Welser-Möst, a Strauss specialist, drew flavourless playing. It is a sign of the remarkable quality of the score — a mix of neoclassical nobility, folkish rusticity and Wagnerian radiance — that it nevertheless inspired.

But patchy casting meant this performance never reached boiling point. Carlo Lepore’s leathery bass made for a wicked Geronte, and Massimo Cavalletti’s Lescaut was deliciously seedy as he caressed his sister.

Gergiev did not disappoint. Basking in the glow of his music-stand lamp, his fingers fluttering restlessly, he drew a sound of deep intensity, as if the spirit of his homeland — “the power of the black earth”, Mussorgsky wrote — had been made to course through the score.

Un hommage digne de ce nom, somme toute, à Claudio Abbado, cinq ans après son décès. Si l'on considère que la direction de feu le chef d'orchestre de La Cenerentola se distinguait par sa remarquable clarté rythmique, alors l'interprétation de son successeur ici, Ottavio Dantone, sort incontestablement du même moule.

Thanks largely to excellent musical contributions from conductor Myung-whun Chung and singers Luca Salsi and Vittoria Yeo, it is also harrowing.

If there was an opera production to capture the essence of the Verdi Festival, this was not it.

The whole is a metatheatrical investigation into the nature of Le Trouvère and its difference from Il trovatore. The French text, mellower than the Italian, was lost in the washy acoustic. But Roberto Abbado, debuting as the festival’s music director, provided Gallic finesse with elegant playing from the Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna.

Fischer proved this performance's driving force. The conductor delivered a pacey, full-throttle reading, recounting the Victor Hugo-inspired plot, about Castillian noblemen, rugged bandits and honourable pacts, with unrelenting vigour and vivacity.

By failing to root such elements into the narrative this production sometimes feels like a parade of Vick's favourite cliches.

The large Sferisterio is usually a difficult space for directors, but Michieletto fills it with a wealth of racy detail: an unbridled hedonistic vision of almost Berlusconian proportions.

The latest conductor Myung-whun Chung's reading contrasted sharply, as he favoured an even, measured sound and spun out the Leonore no. 3 Overture in a gorgeous unbroken arc.

But it is Harding's grasp of the work's architecture that provides overall coherence. That, combined with the pithy, pulsing core he forges at its heart, makes this performance as engaging as it is polished.

But it might have all looked ridiculous were it not for strong musical performances in support. Thankfully, we got them.

Zandonai sets the orchestra as the real protagonist, and conductor Fabio Luisi draws an edge-of-your-seat account of the score.

Davide Livermore’s production of Donizetti’s opera has turned to Italian films for inspiration — with mixed results.

La Scala’s superlative chorus sculpted its contributions idiomatically and with sensitivity. But limp playing from the orchestra meant this performance remained firmly earthbound.

Myung-whun Chung's Simon Boccanegra is worth a watch at La Scala.

Thankfully, there are decent musical performances to enjoy. Daniela Fally sparkles as Adele, Peter Sonn sings nicely as Eisenstein, and Elena Maximova almost convinces us that Prince Orlofsky should be played as a woman rather than a trouser role.

But it was Eyvazov who, having conquered palpable nerves, won the hearts of the loggionisti. His clarion voice and declamatory style sounded authentically veristic, while masterly crafting of the Italian text also found uncommon nuance.

Indeed, when the music was so enjoyable one hardly minded that the staging was so poor.

The local audience, often unforgiving of mishaps in Italian repertoire, applauded obligingly in the end. But there will surely be little thirst for a return visit of this work.

Bechtolf dapples this magical world with realism.

The production is by no means technically perfect.

The lively characters we get in the production, you feel, must also be products of the 87-year-old director's personal experience. Pizzi's playful conception is a thing of unbridled creativity.

Muti's reading of the score is extraordinary, both for its sophistication and originality.