Janáček's Vixen Sharpears has been making streamlined runs between eight Irish cities and towns, no doubt winning new admirers for this singular take on man, nature and the cycle of life. The chamber concept has some problems, but the 13-piece orchestra still makes beautiful work of a ravishing score under Charlotte Corderoy, the voices all project perfectly over it and the basic set design by Maree Kearns is impressive given its need to fit into diverse smaller theatres. 

You’ll have seen the picture countless times. Gracing posters, postcards, tote bags, book and album covers, wrapping paper, phone cases and more, the iconic image of "The Great Wave off Kanagawa" is thought to be the most reproduced visual artwork of all time. Created by Katsushika Hokusai in Edo period Japan, "The Great Wave" was one of the earliest woodblock prints; a medium which was rapidly developed in this period of Japanese history which allowed for mass production of images.

Mahagonny, the spider-web city sucking in men (and they are, even in this 2026 take, mostly men) with cash to burn, is the terminus of human greed and stupidity. It takes the first joint project between Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill, the perfect Mahagonny-Songspiel of 1927, only 20 minutes to get to the end, brushing the gloom aside with a shrug.

Phyllida Lloyd’s production of Peter Grimes, first seen 20 years ago, is still one of the jewels in Opera North’s treasury. It was revived in 2013 for their “Festival of Britten”, and now is back with a fresh top music team and a cast of (mainly) young British singers, several in company debuts, which bodes extremely well for them and for us. 

Chief of this new generation is John Findon in the title role. I admired Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts’ quality as Grimes in the original and the first revival, but Findon’s performance equals and in some respects excels it.

Star attractions for this revival of ENO/Improbable's Coney-Island-in-the-1950s Così were sopranos Lucy Crowe and Ailish Tynan, and conductor Dinis Sousa. All three excelled, but so did the other four principals. More fool me for having stayed away previously out of concern that the usual six characters in search of real feelings would be swamped by fairground business.

It’s more than a decade since Opera North had a new production of The Marriage of Figaro, and 30 years since the one before that had its premiere, so it’s certainly time for a fresh look at it. And bringing the story into the present day (or something near it), and locating it in an English country house (or something like one) was no doubt too good an idea to ignore. It’s not Downton Abbey, as American director Louisa Muller sees it – rather something a bit lower down the financial scale – but still a place where the old-fashioned ways have some clout left in them.

In 2016, when Richard Jones's production of Musorgsky's original 1869 Boris Godunov first amazed us, Putin had invaded Crimea but not the rest of Ukraine, and tens of thousands protested election results in August. A decade on, totalitarian Russia is almost a closed book to us and it had begun to feel as if Musorgsky, and the Pushkin history play on which he based his two versions, had nothing more to forecast about Russian times of change.

Early 2026 was always going to trump late 2025 in one respect: total clarity in a much-anticipated concert performance of Janáček's teeming masterpiece over Katie Mitchell's disastrously overloaded Royal Opera production. And it resplendently did, with Marlis Petersen free to capture every facet of the 337-year-old heroine seeking regeneration, only to decide that life beyond the normal human span isn't worth the candle.

It was a year for outstanding individual performances, especially from relative newcomers, and at least three flawless ensembles, less so for the Total Work of Art.

Fire and ice are the elements invoked at the start of Handel’s remarkable opera of jealousy and betrayal, yet what gives it its power is the world of subtlety and shadow that lies between them. In Jetske Mijnssen’s dynamic, darkly witty directorial debut at the Royal Opera House, she creates a canvas on which each character’s contradictions can be felt to the full, capturing every nuance of their rapturous highs and sonorous lows.