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Acclaimed British composer best known for War Horse, Coram Boy and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Joe Hill-Gibbins’ scaled-down staging is sensitive, and the music beautifully played and sung, but this is an uneven work dramatically

Ruth Knight’s production captures the menace and high stakes in this deliciously devilish power struggle with Lucy Crowe whirling her sword like Uma Thurman in Kill Bill

Barrie Kosky’s remarkable 2015 production returns to the summer festival with Christopher Purves and Iestyn Davies superb in the lead roles

Event, a highlight of city of culture celebrations, will involve 500 musicians playing everything from Mozart to bhangra

William Christie is as busy as ever in a season celebrating his 80th birthday, conducting, playing the harpsichord, administering his Les Arts Florissants orchestral and vocal ensemble and teaching at The Juilliard School as he sticks with Baroque repertoire on period instruments, staying away from more modern composers

Isabela Díaz has great fun as chambermaid Vespetta and Grisha Martirosyan is laugh-out-loud funny as nice-but-dim Pimpinone in a tale of sexual politics not a million miles from our own time

In a good week for baroque experiments, Handel meets Britney Spears and AI, while a whirlwind percussionist unpicks Vivaldi

An imaginative melding of a 1710 Handel cantata and a 1751 oratorio results in a nifty two-act opera-ballet – and a dazzling cornucopia of images