The five top must-see operas at Covent Garden this autumn
Reach for your skinny black dress and pour an Aperol spritz: there is a distinctly Italian feel to the first productions of the season at the Royal Opera House
Puccini's La Bohème, Royal Opera House
Love blossoms in a freezing garret in Paris, but the city's gawdy night life and opportunities to stray are the couple's undoing, in Puccini's evergreen portrait of Bohemian artists
Read more ...Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, Royal Opera House
A young woman abducted, a young man who falls in love with her portrait, a tyrannical mother and an artless birdcatcher fill Mozart's opera with romance, comedy and drama
Read more ...Verdi's Les Vêpres Siciliennes, Royal Opera House
The highly acclaimed 2013 production of Verdi's vast Les Vêpres Siciliennes is back, and it's packed with spectacle, with the opulent Paris Opera as its backdrop
Read more ...Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor, Royal Opera House
The ill-treated heroine of a melodramatic novel by Sir Walter Scott inspired the most dramatic opera of Donizetti's huge output, and this production is stunning
Read more ...Cavalleria Rusticana/Pagliacci, Royal Opera House
Two operas set in rural Italy, by Pietro Mascagni and Ruggero Leoncavallo, illustrate the destructive power of love. But the music is gorgeous...