Dispel all the stereotypes of stout sopranos warbling and stuffy, incomprehensible librettos: this is opera with its feet planted firmly in 2013. Dutch composer Michel van der Aa and novelist David Mitchell (of Cloud Atlas fame) have produced a work to show what opera can do, and what opera can be, in our world of ever-developing technology. Combining live action, 2D and 3D film, a blend of musical styles and modern, sometimes seemingly un-poetical language (“I’m gobsmacked, Mrs Briggs”, sings Toby) – Sunken Garden is a futuristic, intricate and captivating work from the English National Opera.

It is a production of contrasts: a traditional orchestra merges with electronic synths; bare, box-like sets give way to lush greenery; and raw human pain combines with cutting edge wizardry. Definitions of ‘reality’ are blurred as on-stage characters ‘touch’ those on film, causing the images to crackle and distort. It’s a vision that brings risks, but on the whole the project works wonderfully. The lush garden of the title, rendered vividly in 3D film, combines with images projected onto the stage floor to instantly create an overwhelming and vibrant set: a sign of the future? Moreover, characters on film connect with the audience just as powerfully – if not more so – as those on stage. The beautifully pure soprano of Kate Miller-Heidke (Amber) is offset by her arresting presence and gaze, her haunting refrain echoing in my mind long after the music had ended. Similarly, the excruciating sorrow of Simon (Jonathan McGovern) creates real anguish as the opera explores the weight of guilt.

Not everything succeeds quite as effectively as planned. The sparkling drops of water which appear to fly into the audience are exquisitely produced, yet it is unclear how this manipulation is meant to affect those on stage, as their Matrix-style body movements are, quite honestly, a little corny. In an interview with Front Row’s Mark Lawson, van der Aa and Mitchell discussed how the garden itself – the film itself – could become a character, a weapon which is manipulated by those who need its power. This is a fascinating concept but sadly isn’t conveyed to its full potential. Similarly, Zenna’s apparent entry into the garden through the mysterious vertical pool should be an explosive moment – yet it would be infinitely more effective if the audience couldn’t clearly see her creeping onstage from the wings. Yet the braveness and creativity should be applauded throughout, even in less-than-perfect moments. There were touches of magic in the detail, from the twitching, 3D moth, to the simplicity of gauze fluttering to the ground, catching the light exquisitely.

There is so much going on visually that the music could risk being ignored. There are not many memorable melodies here, and the opening section in particular contains an over-long section of recitative that begins to drag, as the backstory is established. Adding to this, beautiful as Katherine Manley’s (Zenna) soprano is, her diction could be clearer, whilst Roderick Williams’s (Toby) rich baritone needs a little bit more fire behind it in climactic scenes. However, the singing was on the whole superb and the orchestra tight and sparkling, negotiating the score’s intricate layerings.

At points, I would have been lost without a synopsis, an issue apparently shared by other theatregoers who bemusedly pondered the plot’s intricacies as they left the Barbican. There are some kinks to be ironed out here, no doubt, but there can be no questioning the excitement and intrigue of Sunken Garden, as van der Aa and Mitchell explore the boundaries of operatic production, triumphantly welcoming the future to our stages.

Sunken Garden is playing at the Barbican Theatre until 20 April. For more information and tickets, see the Barbican Centre website.

Whilst I may never have heard the name Charles Castronovo before last night, the Italian-American tenor is famous in the world of opera, and so it is a real coup for the intimate King’s Head Theatre to be hosting Castronovo’s Dolce Napoli as an aside to his current performance in The Magic Flute at the Royal Opera House.

Castronovo has done this before; whilst performing in Don Giovanni in New York he would make rapid dashes to a smaller fringe space, still heavily made-up at this point, to regale fellow opera lovers with his beautiful and emotive voice. Comparing his New York and London audience may be interesting, for whilst Castronovo was a charming, affable and warm host, the small number who filed into the King’s Head felt a little, well, formal.

Castronovo clearly loves the work he does, his inspiration and motivation stems from his own Sicilian heritage; his family is mentioned on several occasions, as are references to bellyfuls of pasta and free-flowing red wine. This may well be a highly sentimentalised and overly-romantic image of Italy, but Castronovo’s booming charisma and grace, complete with dapper wardrobe and the occasional winks he generously provides the audience with, keeps the night just on the right side of becoming, in his own words, “too sappy and mushy”.

If there is a motif that runs through Castronovo’s set list, it is one of traditional Italian values. This should come as no surprise bearing in mind that most songs come from either the nineteenth century or the 1920s/30s at the latest, with many seemingly being all about a love-struck Neapolitan serenading a woman at her window (“there was nothing else to do back then I guess”, notes Castronovo between songs). My favourite was ‘Perche?’ (‘Why?’), with the male protagonist lamenting in supposed typical Italian style “why did I leave my mother for you?!”, while ‘Malefemmena’ (‘Bad Woman’) is a bitter number about a femme-fatale . ‘Come FacettaMammeta?’ (literally ‘How did your mother make you?’) also works to inject some nostalgic warmth into Castronovo’s set. Indeed, Castronovo’s voice transferred you to another place or time, the King’s Head’s striking staging for their current run of Quasimodo became invisible, instead we could well easily been dining al fresco on a lazy Sunday afternoon in Napoli.

Castronovo’s 70-minute performance was ably accompanied by a five-piece band, including Little Bulb Theatre’s Tom Penn on percussion. It was impressive to learn that this group of musicians had apparently just been cobbled together, united through a love of using good music to make people happy.

What is most heartening is that Castronovo’s Dolce Napoli is art for art’s sake; there is no need or reason for Castronovo to perform other than for him to educate and share with audiences his knowledge, passion and love for the songs and sounds of his heritage and culture. Sit back, listen and love the voice of Charles Castronovo.

Charles Castronovo’s Dolce Napoli is on at the King’s Head on 7, 8, 14 and 29 April. For more information and tickets, see the Kings Head Theatre website.

Between the time Giuseppe Verdi debuted La Traviata in the mid nineteenth century and today, there have been enormous changes to opera audiences — and I’m not just talking about our oh-so-vulgar tendency to wear jeans. Since poor young Violetta first alternated delicate trills and sickly coughs back in 1853, we have, most importantly, forgotten just how sexy Tuberculosis can be. Led by slick director Peter Konwitschny, the ENO’s take on this melodramatic tragedy injects a little glamour into a disease that medicine tried to inoculate away.

Using minimal props and a series of red and grey curtains, designer Johannes Leiacker sets up a delicious opposition between the crisp, stylish world of the inner-city elite, and the pure and wholesome countryside, where worthy values such as love are the only essential accessories. In the city, a place where party-goers only relax so they’ll be ready to have more fun the next day, to live is to be social. Unfortunately for popular prostitute Violetta (Corinne Winters), dying is also an experience to be had in the public eye.

Choreographed with a certain liquidity, the chorus, a river of elegant bodies dressed in chic black costumes, ebb and flow around our tragic heroine. Wearing bibs made of napkins, and wielding cutlery as if ready to dissect and digest the latest portion of juicy news, this crowd is hungry for gossip, and as Violetta stands out in a covetable blood red gown, it is easy to see how she became the central point of every party and the focus of every gentleman’s attentions. But while she makes a bold visual presence, the Violetta of the first scene initially fits neatly into high society. Indeed, as her dress becomes camouflaged against the first of a sequence of detachable curtains, it’s clear that this world has embraced our tragic heroine.

Coming in at just over 100 minutes, Martin Fitzpatrick’s English translation manages to be as lean and economical as the production’s set design, without compromising on any of the dark intensity of Verdi’s themes. The libretto retains all of its passion and velocity, evident as Violetta declares that Alfredo’s affection has the power to transform a burning fever into a fire of love. Through such imagery, Fitzpatrick engages with the macabre seductiveness of this opera.

Wearing a succession of hairstyles ranging from the neat black bob of the high maintenance socialite, to a country-woman’s blonde curls tamed with a scarf, Winters neatly plots Violetta’s interactions with her two polarised worlds. Later, stripped of both her wigs and her dignity, Violetta has fallen from society and is ready to die. Once again, the tightly co-ordinated movements of Konwitschny’s chorus highlight a ruination as ladies and gentlemen fall to the ground after their discarded games, their crumbled society little more than a fallen house of cards.

Ben Johnson delivers an astute but suitably unremarkable performance as Alfredo, Violetta’s bookish lover, but in this adaptation Anthony Michaels-Moore’s Giorgio Germont is the truly dominant male force. Giorgio is a manipulative and controlling patriarch, and Michaels-Moore embellishes this power through uncomfortably persuasive staccato curses that position Alfredo firmly as an infant and remind us of Violetta’s ill-fated destiny.

This opera may paint a pessimistic image of polite society’s brutality, but it also teaches us that “for those who suffer, art can offer consolation”. Thanks to Konwitschny’s heightened and occasionally dreamlike artistry, the falling woman is cocooned in a heroic bubble of glamour. As she descends to her aesthetic death while those who betrayed her watch from a lit-up auditorium, Violetta’s helplessness and isolation is sharply underscored.

When the action bleeds into the stalls, our director holds up a mirror to another crowd desperate to consume a tale of demise. We may not be waving our knives and forks like our on-stage counterparts in the chorus, but this last sly comment seasons this beautifully envisioned and poetic tragedy with a relevance and a judgement that goes far beyond good design.

La Traviata is playing at London Coliseum until 3 March. For more information and tickets, see the ENO’s website. 

Opera In Space’s production of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas is not your traditional opera. In the same vein as companies such as Punchdrunk (famed for, amongst others, its productions of Faust and The Duchess of Malfi) Opera in Space has made the bold choice to stage this 1680s opera as a promenade piece, using unexplored corners of Peckham’s Bussey Building.

There is a great deal of experimentation with this production, and as such there are some rather exciting moments alongside some less successful innovations. Purcell’s opera, composed for a chamber orchestra, does have some inherent issues for a contemporary audience, particularly from a feminist perspective. Richard Pyros’s adaptation infantilises Dido – more a beguiled schoolgirl fascinated by self-destruction than a widowed warrior queen – in an attempt to understand her apparently dependent nature. Sylvie Gallant plays her with tenderness and charm, and her voice is captivating despite some limitations.

The stand out performance, however, comes from Carleen Ebbs as Belinda. Her charisma and presence match her beautiful vocals, and she also performs well as one of the witches and a bawdy wench. Jean-Sebastian Beauvais (also Musical Director) is strong as the Sorceress’s elf who poses as Mercury, messenger of the Gods, to trick Aeneas into abandoning Dido. He finds a bold physicality, taking risks with the character that certainly pay off. Choreographers Konstantinos Thomaidis and Ito O’Brien have added some lovely touches, including involving members of the audience in a courtly dance in the first act.

There are some rather incongruous changes made, however. Dido’s famous lament is shifted to the start of the show, and there are some curious cuts leaving what would otherwise be a very strong ending a little abrupt. The addition of Erroll Garner’s jazz standard Misty and an extract from Marlowe’s Dido, Queen of Carthage do not feel entirely necessary despite undoubtedly being crowd-pleasers. The rather crucial Sorceress and her witches are not fully explained, leaving an air of slight bemusement after their first appearance. They plot the downfall of Dido and are of vital importance to the plot, so it is a shame that they were not fully explored.

The design, by Russell Harris, uses the space perfectly. It does not in any way attempt to mask the space the production is using, rather it builds upon it, embracing it. The grove in act two is a particular gem, with real turf and apples on the ground creating the textures and smells of the location as well as the appearance. The audience have the opportunity to get up close and personal with the design, sitting on the grass, moving in amongst the action, meaning the audience get a tactile experience. The S&M-dungeon-come-mass-murderer’s-basement in which the Sorceress is found is another brilliant design, combining taxidermy with blood and drug taking.

The three-piece orchestra, made up of Katie De La Matter, Poppy Walshaw and Eleanor Harrison on the harpsichord, cello and violin, is impressively skilled and provide first-rate accompaniment throughout.

The key success of this show is the way it engages the audience. Although at times the narrative is a little confused, and the staging doesn’t always work, the production grips the audience straight away and keeps you wanting more. Opera in Space make opera accessible to a new audience, keeping the art form vital and alive. Hopefully the company will keep learning, innovating and experimenting. Opera in Space is an exciting company to watch.

Dido and Aeneas was at the Bussey Building in Peckham until 26 January.