Antonio Pappano bows out with a blazing performance of Giordano’s red-blooded opera, while a fine cast brings out the vitality of Rossini’s classic in spite of the weather

Jonas Kaufmann, Anna Netrebko and Antonio Pappano pull off a buoyant La Gioconda; elsewhere, a fresh Verdi Requiem and a Byronic septuagenarian viola soloist made this a festival to remember

This new recording is taken from stage performances of Kirill Serebrennikov’s divisive 2021 production for Vienna State Opera. Jonas Kaufmann leads a superb cast with Philippe Jordan conducting a recording that is amongst the finest Parsifals on disc

This revival of Benoît Jacquot’s 2004 staging of Massenet’s tragedy sees Antonio Pappano and his orchestra on top form. Kaufmann was not at full strength but Aigul Akhmetshina’s Charlotte shone

The peerless tenor and his companion turn Schumann and Brahms’s romantic duets into tiny operas, while the Royal Academy’s rising stars enchant… and mystify

This year’s festive zingers take you from Berlin to Buckfast Abbey, from Mexico to Kaufmann in full-on crooner mode

Jonas Kaufmann, Diana Damrau and Helmut Deutsch deliver a brilliantly introspective take on Wolf’s Italienisches Liederbuch

For his 20th Festtage, Daniel Barenboim rustled up electrifying Elgar, all-star Parsifal and a trip to the underworld with Frank Gehry