AUDITORIUM

✮✮✮✮ Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía Emilio Sagi | Fabio Biondi It was 33 years ago that Emilio Sagi, former artistic director of Teatro Real Madrid and Teatro Arriaga Bilbao, first directed rising star Mariella Devia in Donizetti’s Don Pasquale. The soprano now known as the last prima donna of the Italian old school has long since graduated from the role of young widow Norina, and for the past three decades has reigned supreme as Donizetti’s various

✮✮✮✮ Handel's Saul Adelaide Festival Barrie Kosky | Erin Helyard Stories of narcissism are more relevant than ever. In our age of omnipresent cameras and selfie-fueled social media, we are made to look at our personal selves more intensely than ever before, with no belief system powerful enough to convince us of any detrimental effects that would come from this unnaturally high level of self-obsession. We are all kings and queens, in our own minds at least, always placing the

✮✮✮ Wagner's Tristan und Isolde Bayreuth Festival Katharina Wagner | Christian Thielemann King Marke has a mean collection of bicycle stands. Kurvenal grasps their sinister implications, and trembles in a corner. Marke and his men watch from above, helped by spot-lights, as Tristan and Isolde build themselves a cubby-house with a blanket and a bunch of clip-on, battery-operated stars which they happen to have with them. Later they use the edge of one of the bicycle stands

✮✮✮✮ Tchikovsky's Iolanta / Stravinsky's Perséphone Festival d'Art Lyrique d'Aix en Provence Peter Sellars | Teodor Currentzis Tchaikovsky's opera Iolanta is based on a story by Danish poet Hendrik Hertz. Iolanta lives a well-protected life with her servants, but she is not happy. Her father, the King René, wants to keep the fact that she is blind a secret from her. It is forbidden, on pain of strict punishment, to speak to her about colour and light. That, however, is exa

✮✮✮ 1/2 Ana Sokolović's Svadba Festival d'Art Lyrique d'Aix en Provence Ted Huffman & Zack Winokur | Dáirine Ní Mheadhra The Serbian-born Canadian composer Ana Sokolović’s opera Svadba was first performed in concert in Toronto in 2011. It went on to win the country’s prestigious performing arts award, the Dora Mavor Moore, for Outstanding New Opera before embarking on a national tour. It has since received the American première at Opera Philadelphia. Earlier this year, Alexan

✮✮✮✮ Jonathan Dove's The Monster in the Maze Festival d'Art Lyrique d'Aix en Provence Marie-Ève Signeyrole | Simon Rattle The idea of creating an opera with singers of all ages, from children to adults, with young instrumentalists side by side with professional orchestral musicians, was an educational idea of "the Simons", Sir Simon Rattle and Simon Halsey. Composer Jonathan Dove and librettist Alasdair Middleton were collaborators selected for the task, and the Berlin Philh

✮ Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail Festival d'Art Lyrique d'Aix en Provence Martin Kušej | Jérémie Rhorer The entire stage is one vast bed. Tytania sleeps in it, Puck bounces on it, Oberon struts proudly over the covers. The sky is a midnight blue, both on the stage and above it. Robert Carsen's 1991 production of Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream is a piece of history. It was the young director's first international big break, and gave the Festival a fresh new take

✮✮✮ Handel's Alcina Festival d'Art Lyrique d'Aix en Provence Katie Mitchell | Andrea Marcon Alcina is not keen on free love. She prefers to treat her former lovers with chemicals and put them through a kind of baggage control machine which spits them out as stuffed animals. When she is not busy with taxidermy, Alcina and her sidekick Morgana like to dabble in erotic games and bondage with their future ornaments. For her new production in the Grand Théâtre de Provence, Katie

✮✮✮✮ Berg's Lulu Dutch National Opera & Ballet | Amsterdam William Kentridge | Lothar Zagrosek Just who is Lulu? Frank Wedekind’s femme fatale needs a re-think if she is to work for today’s enlightened viewer – at least, so think many contemporary stage directors. For his recent Munich production, director Dmitri Tcherniakov gave audiences Lulu as a borderliner, victim of her own emotional damage. In Amsterdam, William Kentridge sees no such need for re-assessment. He takes

✮✮✮✮ 1/2 Comfort Ye Artscape Theatre | Cape Town Robert Lehmeier | Catherine Milliken | Erik Dippenaar Comfort Ye depicts a day in the life of one of South Africa’s countless “previously disadvantaged communities”, more commonly known as townships or informal settlements. The narrative draws together stories written by young members of the Bloekombos Secondary School choir. Their narratives tell of love, loss, pursuit, murder, abuse, families torn apart. These are, sadly, not