I puritani, with a libretto by Count Carlo Pepoli, was Vincenzo Bellini’s final opera, as he died just eight months after its premiere in January 1835. Based on Têtes Rondes et Cavaliers, an historical play by Jacques-François Ancelot and Joseph Xavier Saintine, it is set during the English Civil War, although the specific episode described is fictitious. In fact, the narrative was always intended to be a commentary on the political climate of 1830s Paris following the...

Some productions are tremendous on their first outing and never quite manage to recapture the same brilliance in subsequent revivals. Others discover that they need an initial outing before they find their feet, and the Royal Opera’s Rigoletto, from its Director of Opera Oliver Mears, would seem to fall into this latter category. It first appeared last September, but, aided by an outstanding cast, its first revival feels leaner and meaner in a great many ways. The good news is that...

            Willy Decker’s Traviata premiered in Salzburg in 2005 with Rolando Villazón and Anna Netrebko. It had already generated huge DVD sales and had become one of the most iconic contemporary productions across the opera world when Peter Gelb picked it up in 2010 for the Metropolitan Opera, consequently getting rid of the cherished but aging 1996 Franco Zeffirelli’s production. Needless to say, even though New...