The Merry Widow review – come for the big tunes, stay for the birthday cement mixer
John Savournin has huge fun transplanting Lehár’s fictional Balkan Neverland to mafioso Manhattan in a hyperactive production
Mazeppa review – Tchaikovsky’s blood-thirsty opera is a wild and gruesome ride
David Pountney’s striking staging of this timely tale of a Ukrainian warlord battling Russian power unsettles the stomach as much as it titillates the ear
Rodelinda review – powerplay and pig’s blood in thrillingly energised Handel
Ruth Knight’s production captures the menace and high stakes in this deliciously devilish power struggle with Lucy Crowe whirling her sword like Uma Thurman in Kill Bill
A Visit to Friends/The Gildas Quartet review – Colin Matthews’s luminous new opera opens Aldeburgh in fine style
With a Chekhov-inspired libretto by William Boyd, this ‘opera within an opera’ had an excellent cast and a lucid staging. Another brand new work by Colin Matthews – his vivid Quartet No 6 – featured the following morning
Saul review – probing, dark and engrossing staging of Handel’s oratorio
Barrie Kosky’s remarkable 2015 production returns to the summer festival with Christopher Purves and Iestyn Davies superb in the lead roles
Così Fan Tutte review – country house remix offers fresh farce and energy
Misogynist Don Alfonso is at the centre of things in this opera-within-an-opera benefiting from a witty translation into English, formidable arias and scene-stealing acting
The Queen of Spades review – dark and convincing staging of Tchaikovsky’s compulsive drama
Aaron Cawley brings a prodigious intensity to Pushkin’s antihero Hermann, while a fine ensemble and Douglas Boyd on the podium help drive the innovative score forward
Wahnfried review – madness, monstrousness and a mischievous Wagner daemon
Avner Dorman’s chilling opera about the toxic Wagner clan’s in-fighting comes to the UK in an effective and lively staging by Polly Graham
The Flying Dutchman review – terrific cast and hurtling momentum in OHP’s first ever Wagner
Julia Burbach’s blurs the lines of reality and illusion in an impressive new staging of Wagner’s horror story that hits more than it misses. Musically it is very fine indeed
Faust review – darkly gothic production turns Gounod’s opera into boisterous Les Mis
The 1860s French setting mixes panache and musical charm as Faust sells his soul to Méphistophélès and seduces Marguerite
Parsifal review – reconciliation rather than redemption as Wagner staging focuses on family over faith
Jetske Mijnssen’s production of Wagner’s opera – the festival’s first – bypasses much of its mysticism and magic, but it is moving and musically very special
Trial by Jury/A Matter of Misconduct! review – gags and Spads in Scottish Opera’s sparkling double bill
Gilbert and Sullivan’s 150-year-old comic opera gets a lively update, while there is plenty of fun to be had at the expense of politicians in Toby Hessian’s pacy new operetta
Giulio Cesare review – concert staging with plenty of sublime, and ridiculous, moments
Harry Bicket and the English Concert’s performance of Handel’s opera was full of compelling performances, most notably Louise Alder’s Cleopatra, Christophe Dumaux’s Caesar and John Holiday’s Ptolemy
The Excursions of Mr Brouček review – Simon Rattle embraces Janáček’s baffling but beautiful opera
Simon Rattle and the London Symphony Orchestra’s survey of Janáček’s operas arrives at the zany Mr Brouček. With Peter Hoare in the lead role and the likes of Lucy Crowe and Aleš Briscein, the performances could not be bettered
Pimpinone review – hot-to-trot comic opera from the underperformed Telemann
Isabela Díaz has great fun as chambermaid Vespetta and Grisha Martirosyan is laugh-out-loud funny as nice-but-dim Pimpinone in a tale of sexual politics not a million miles from our own time