William Hartston

The first act is a total triumph for German director Tobias Kratzer but the second act is, by comparison, a misguided disaster.

The orchestra under the excellent English conductor Alexander Joel give an finely sensitive account of the music while the ENO has put together a terrific cast of singers who gave a magnificent performance.

With a very strong cast and Antonio Pappano conducting, Covent Garden does glorious justice to this fine work.

Glass’s music is never easy, either to sing or listen to, but his Orphée is more accessible that usual and the leading cast members are terrific.

The cast, led by the magnificent Bryn Terfel in the title role, all do their jobs wonderfully. Terfel himself acts and sings beautifully, while also giving us an unusually sympathetic portrayal of the abject misery of the post-marital misery of Pasquale.

Dancers aside, this has a remarkably small cast for an opera with only Sarah Tynan as Eurydice and Soraya Mafi as Love (Gluck's version of Cupid) having significant roles alongside Alice Coote which they performed excellently.

The American soprano Joyce DiDonato is outstanding in the title role, giving a glorious account of the all-powerful, all-scheming Agrippina.

Edward Gardner maintained a perfect balance between orchestra and singer throughout as this aria grew in emotional intensity.

The first reason for that is the excellent cast. Uruguayan bass-baritone Erwin Schrott holds the whole thing together perfectly in the title role.

In terms of imagination and pure enjoyment, I am tempted to give this five stars, but I still have some doubts that Mozart and his librettist Emanuel Schikaneder would have approved.

DAVID McVicar's sumptuous production of Mozart's Marriage of Figaro for the Royal Opera was first seen in 2006 but still seems as fresh as ever, with the current production having a surprising feature that introduces yet another reason to enjoy this glorious opera, even if you have seen this production before.

Most opera, if must be admitted, have simple plots that are just an excuse for some beautiful music and singing.

Despite having some glorious arias and generally powerful, sumptuous music, Andrea Chénier is a rare visitor to the world's major opera houses.

Unusually, it is the power of the story that makes Billy Budd such a good opera, and the strength of Britten's music does it justice.

In all these guises, Mephistopheles is sung and acted with great power by the Uruguayan bass-baritone Erwin Schrott, who brings a wonderful devilish swagger to the role.

When two of the world's most acclaimed operatic superstars in the cast, Verdi's Forza Del Destino was widely seen as promising to be one of the highlights of world opera this year.

The Royal Opera has taken the opportunity to cast four young singers as the lovers, together with Don Alfonso played by the wonderful Thomas Allen, who has been performing at Covent Garden since long before they were born.

As so often, giving a star rating to this opera is not easy: it's a five-star performance of a four-star production of a three-star opera, which averages out neatly at four.

Great music, great singing, great acting: altogether a terrific production.

Frankly, what I saw at the Royal Opera struck me as musically a five star performance of a two star production of a four star opera.

The star of the show, however, is Gerhard Siegel as the witch, whose gingerbread house is designed to capture the attention of the adult audience by looking like something from Hitchcock's Psycho, with a huge knife stabbing through its roof.

Carmens that very few singers are familiar with it, but Arquez took the role several times in the previous production and was able to step in. American tenor Brian Jagde gave a convincing performance as Don Jose and Russian bass Alexander Vinogradov was a splendid bullfighter/lover.

It is perhaps fair to say that there was no outstanding performance, but overall it was as perfect an ensemble production as one could wish for.

To add to all the glorious singing, the conductor Antonio Pappano was perhaps the hardest working of all, conducting the Royal Opera House Orchestra with commendable vigour and a true understanding of the music, while the director Keith Warner and set designer Stefanos Lazaridis combined to create an impression as strong as the music but never going too far.

The current production at Covent Garden is a first revival of the version Richard Jones directed last autumn and it benefits from several small changes, which combat the inconsistencies of the earlier version, and by having the strongest cast I have seen in this opera.

FOUR-and-a-half hours of opera may sound like a bit of an endurance test, but when the singing is as good as this and the music is Wagner at his imperious best, you get so engrossed that you do not notice the time flying past.

The Orchestra of the Royal Opera House were also on great form, with the conductor Antonio Pappano drawing an exciting performance from them.

Janacek’s forceful music, impressively conducted by Mark Wigglesworth, includes a remarkable array of instruments including, at one stage in the percussion section, a saw cutting through wood.

Bizet's Carmen has long been one of the most popular of all operas but don’t worry if you have seen it before: this Carmen, directed by Barrie Kosky, is quite unlike anything you or indeed anyone else has ever experienced.

It may lack the sensational quality of the dream team, but still makes for a superb evening.

Indeed with extraordinarily powerful performances in the roles of Jokanaan (John the Baptist) and Salome herself, the effect is stunning.

In the current production, the Duke is played by the American tenor Michael Fabiano who sings with high volume and acts with a brashness rarely seen in this part but totally fitting McVicar’s vision.

Her final act duet with DiDonato provided one of those rare moments at Covent Garden when the audience, totally entranced by the music, stopped all their coughing. This was pure magic.

Best of all, however, was the performance of Cuban-American soprano Lisette Oropesa in the title role which was simply sensational.

Grand opera does not come much grander than this.

A splendid revival of a great production of a wonderful opera.

With Antonio Pappano conducting with perfect control, especially in his use of breathtakingly quiet passages that brought out the powerful emotions of the piece, this was a real musical treat.

Richard Croft was excellent as Tito and Anna Stéphany brought a stunning voice and excellent boyish manner to the role of Tito’s would-be assassin Sesto.

Even by Glyndebourne’s stratospherically high standards, this was a glorious cast.