Best Opera 2018: divas, dramas and dates for your diary
Puccini, Mozart and Verdi are in the front row of the year's outstanding opera productions
Bizet's Carmen, Royal Opera House
If you love her, you are playing with fire: if you don’t love her, it’s more dangerous still. Meet Carmen, the tormenting tease in Bizet's opera of the same name, with a song on every page
Read more ...Puccini's Tosca, Royal Opera House
In Puccini's Tosca a painter and opera singer put their own lives in danger to protect rebels and each other. The great soprano Angela Gheorghiu sings Tosca at two performances
Janáček's From The House of the Dead, Royal Opera House
Here's a first at the Royal Opera House: From the House of the Dead is the Czech composer Janáček’s final, powerful. And London will see it at last in 2018. Based on Dostoevsky's novel, it finds compassion in the most surprising place
Read more ...Gilbert and Sullivan's Iolanthe, English National Opera, Coliseum
A riproaring comedy in music is promised by the director of One Man, Two Guv'nors. Prepare to laugh your socks off AND come away humming every tune in this light political satire
Read more ...Verdi's La Traviata, English National Opera, Coliseum
One of the most eagerly awaited events of the opera year is the first production for English National Opera by Daniel Kramer since becoming artistic director in April 2016. A society hostess finds true love, but sacrifices it
Read more ...Mozart's Così Fan Tutte, Opera Holland Park
Mozart's opera of lovers who do swapsies is given a new production at the ever-resourceful Opera Holland Park. It's country house opera without leaving town...
Read more ...Strauss's Ariadne Auf Naxos, Opera Holland Park
Richard Strauss's lush orchestration and sense of the absurd come to the fore in his tongue-in-cheek Ariadne Auf Naxos, an opera within an opera, performed for the first time in the company's history at Opera Holland Park.
Read more ...Puccini's Madama Butterfly, Glyndebourne Festival Opera
The heartbreaking story of a young Japanese woman married on a whim by an American naval officer and abandoned by him is the inspiration for Puccini's ravishing opera Madama Butterfly, performed for the first time at elegant Glyndebourne
Read more ...Oklahoma!, Grange Park Opera
If you have ever looked out of the window and wanted to sing Oh What a Beautiful Morning, an evening at Grange Park Opera's Oklahoma!, is for you. Catch the hit-filled musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein in the Theatre in the Woods
Read more ...Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, Garsington Opera
Summer is not complete without a trip to Garsington Opera, where Mozart's beguiling opera Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) features Cardiff Singer of the World prize-winning soprano Louise Alder. Hear her while she's on the doorstep...
Read more ...