After 5pm, Music, Opera

• Written by: Rossini

This English translation of Gioachino Rossini's comic, two-act opera in which Count Almaviva enlists the help of local fixer Figaro to gain access to his beloved Rosina, who is guarded by the over-protective Dr. Bartolo.

• Directed by: Antony McDonald (dir)
• Written by: Wagner

Lothar Koenigs conducts Wagner's opera of love and redemption. Starring Peter Wedd in the title role and Emma Bell as Elsa. Directed by Antony McDonald. Sung in German with surtitles in English (and Welsh in Cardiff).

• Directed by: James Burton (cond)
• Written by: Mozart

Paul Higgins directs a new period production of Mozart's comedy of innocence and experience. With Laura Mitchell, Paula Sides, Kitty Whately. Conducted by James Burton

• Written by: W S Gilbert

Members of the local G&S society perform the comic-opera on their 40th anniversary. Donald Stephenson plays The Mikado and Rachel Warren sings the part of Yum-Yum.

A free, hour-long peek backstage at the inner workings, characters, scenes and high points of The Pirates of Penzance.

The uplifting tale of the musical Von Trapp family, packed full of hummable tunes.

• Directed by: Michael Rosewell (cond)
• Written by: Verdi

Michael Rosewell conducts Verdi's opera about a corsair who becomes the Doge of Genoa. With Craig Smith in the title role and Elizabeth Llewellyn

• Written by: Lynne Plowman

Contemporary children's opera composed by Lynne Plowman depicting the story of Salty Sue who wants to leave her life as landlady of the harbourside in The Blasted Bilge Rat to become a singer.

• Written by: Gilbert And Sullivan

A performance of Gilbert and Sullivan's Far Eastern tale of love and bumbling bureaucrats.

• Directed by: Sir Mark Elder (cond)
• Written by: Mozart

Sir Mark Elder conducts Mozart's Symphony No 38 and Strauss's Extracts from Der Rosenkavalier. With soloists Anne Schwanewilms, Sarah Connolly and Lucy Crowe.

Gilbert and Sullivan's evergreen satirical opera about the love between a lowly sailor and a captain's daughter.

Seductress, victim, manipulator: Lulu lives off men as both tortured and torturer, purveyor of ecstasy and angel of death. Caught up in greedy games and seedy schemes, and surrounded by lovers driven to despair, Lulu makes an inexorable rise to the highest levels of power, money and fame. But her descent is just as swift.

• Directed by: Christopher Monks
• Written by: George Frideric Handel

The group performs a comic take on a tale of two lovers, set to Baroque music by Handel and others and featuring music from Xerxes, Giulio Cesare, Rindaldo and Orlando. Directed by Emma Rivlin. Sung in English.

• Directed by: Jane Clark
• Written by: Mozart

Jane Clark directs A performance of Mozart's tale of dissolution and retribution, inspired by the Spanish legend of Don Juan.

Minimalist composer Philip Glass’s magical reimagining of Jean Cocteau’s 1946 La Belle et la Bête combines the classic black and white film with live performance in a Šsophisticated work that is at once a touching fairy tale and a meditation on creativity. Removing the film’s original dialogue track and score by Georges…

Vincenzo Bellini: I Capuleti ed i Montecchi - opera in 2 acts Bellini's sixth opera was written for La Fenice in Venice in 1830, immediately before La sonnambula. It was not based directly on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet but on its Italian precursors. A distinctive coloration is provided by the older tradition of…

• Directed by: Mark Forkgen
• Written by: Marc Blitzstein

Mark Forkgen conducts an English adaptation by Marc Blitzstein of Kurt Weill's opera, which gives a satirical view of capitalism in pre-war London. Directed by Ellie Nixon.

• Written by: Domenico Cimarosa

A performance of Benjamin Britten's first opera, about the founding of America by a motley band of pioneers, and Domenico Cimarosa's The Secret Marriage, a tale of class rivalries, marriageable sisters and a pompous English Count.

• Directed by: Ramin Gray
• Written by: Oscar Wilde

Gerald Barry's operatic adaption of Oscar Wilde's classic comedy of manners. With direction by Ramin Gray. The Britten Sinfonia is conducted by Tim Murray and Alan Ewing stars as Lady Bracknell.

Highlights include: Georges Bizet: Les Toréadors from Carmen Giuseppe Verdi: Ehi! paggio! from Falstaff Giuseppe Verdi: Ella giammai m'amò from Don Carlos Richard Wagner: O du, mein holder Abendstern (Song to the evening star) from Tannhäuser, Act 3 Interval The acclaimed and award-winning operatic…

Giuseppe Verdi: Alzira - opera in 2 acts (concert performance in Italian with English surtitles) Interval continued Verdi's rarely heard eighth opera was his first for the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, in 1845. Cammarano, the resident poet, based his libretto on a play by Voltaire subtitled Les Américains, set…

• Written by: Verdi

Verdi's passionate opera in four acts about the doomed love affair between Ethiopian slave girl Aida and Egyptian hero Radames featuring the Chisinau National Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus. Sung in Italian with English surtitles.

Martin Handley conducts Puccini's classic East meets West tragedy about a young geisha girl and her American lover. Directed by Jacopo Spirei. Sung in Italian.

A performance of Gilbert and Sullivan's tale of love and bumbling bureaucrats.