Puccini: La Bohème

There's a reason why Puccini's La bohème is one of the world's favourite operas – there's no sweeter or more touching evocation of how it feels to be young and in love in the City of Light. Giancarlo del Monaco's gloriously colourful 2006 production for the Teatro Real in Madrid is a Bohème that dreams are made of; an exuberant ensemble cast singing their hearts out in a magical evocation of 19th-century Paris. Described by Gramophone as "a glorious vindication of traditional staging at its imaginative, re-creative best," it's conducted with irrepressible warmth by the great Jesús López Cobos.