Manuel Fuentes

Enjoy a thrilling operatic double bill — Ravel's L’Heure espagnole, performed during the year of Ravel's 150th birthday anniversary, and Puccini's Gianni Schicchi — by award-winning duo Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier at the magnificent Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía, Valencia! The star-studded cast features renowned mezzo-soprano Eve-Maud Hubeaux and soprano Marina Monzó, as well as acclaimed baritone Ambrogio Maestri and tenor Iván Ayón Rivas, performing under the masterful baton of Michele Spotti.

Christof Loy continues his exploration of early 20th-century opera at the Deutsche Oper Berlin with Respighi's rarely heard La fiamma. Imposing choruses and sweeping tableaux drive a drama of suspicion, desire and public frenzy, heightened here by Carlo Rizzi's musical direction and a cast led by Olesya Golovneva and Georgy Vasiliev. Premiered in 1934, the work mirrors a society sliding towards authoritarianism, its show trial carrying an unsettling emotional charge. Respighi's score moves beyond the colours of the Trilogia romana, blending impressionist shimmer, Russian influence and a renewed fascination with Italian Renaissance sound worlds.