Alan Pingarron

Pious restraint comes face to face with sensuous hedonism in Camille Saint-Saëns’s grand-opera retelling of the Bible story of Samson and Delilah. Multi-Olivier Award winning director Richard Jones returns to The Royal Opera to stage this spectacular fin-de-siècle masterpiece, not performed at Covent Garden since 2004. Elina Garanca stars as the Philistine Dalila, SeokJong Baek as the inspiring Jewish hero Samson and Antonio Pappano conducts the full forces of the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House. With superb singing in solos and duets of great intimacy and fervour, gorgeous music with thrilling orchestral interludes, and splendid choral numbers for the Royal Opera Chorus – this is a performance to remember.

Luz works at a gallery but her real passion and purpose in life is as an opera singer. She’s been invited to audition for Madame Butterfly at one of the principal theatres in Mexico City. Luz must practice. Her friends Lycian and Chío instruct her. How to make her voice and hands dance. She’s told “Your mouth is twice the size of your eye,” and this is all part of a divine geometry that governs the world. The 25th commission from Miu Miu Women’s Tales.