Verdi: La traviata

Verdi's La traviata is tragedy of love, loss and social convention. It's also the only opera that Verdi set in his own era, and director Tom Cairns took that fact as his cue when, in 2014, he created this stylish and heartfelt updating for Glyndebourne. Like the opera's story, the settings are simultaneously contemporary and timeless – finding the human drama behind the surface glamour. But this being Glyndebourne, the cast is exemplary too, with Michael Fabiano as Alfredo and Venera Gimadieva as Violetta, while conductor Mark Elder lavishes a lifetime's experience on a performance that one critic called "exquisite".