July 2026

Our front cover this month shows characters in a maze from the National Theatre Brno’s new production of Agrippina.

Inside you’ll find reviews of books, CDs, DVDs and of performances from around the world, along with features including:

John Allison follows a trail of evidence to discover the provenance of the libretto for the opera La petite Fadette – was it or was it not by George Sand?

The composer Vittorio Gnecchi found himself in a damaging feud concerning his opera Cassandra, with contemporary critics and with Richard Strauss and his supporters, as David Chandler relates. 

In our ongoing series on the component parts of opera productions, Anthony Freud talks to the set and costume designers Vicki Mortimer, Christopher Oram and John Macfarlane.

Anne Arenstein introduces Cincinnati Opera’s premiere of Lalovavi, a new work by the composer Kevin Day and librettist Tifara Brown, resulting from the company’s pioneering Black Opera Project.

Coming through our Stage Door is the countertenor Randall Scotting as he prepares to reprise his success as Adone in Salvatore Sciarrino’s Venere e Adone at La Fenice.

Productions reviewed around the world include: Agrippina in Brno; Tales of Love and Loss at the Linbury, Covent Garden; Idomeneo in Brussels; Kamalehua: The Sheltering Tree in Honolulu; Der Graf von Luxemburg in Munich; Sleepers Awake in Philadelphia; Werther in Toronto; Written on Skin in Frankfurt; Orlando in Lausanne; Don Giovanni in Melbourne; La clemenza di Tito in Vienna; The Wreckers in Detmold; Julietta in Wrocław; Der fliegende Holländer at Welsh National Opera; Simon Boccanegra in Venice; Clémence de Grandval’s Mazeppa in Dortmund