Mask of Orpheus, English National Opera

A little bit of musical history was made on 21 Mary 1986 when composer Harrison Birtwistle's opera The Mask of Orpheus was first performed by English National Opera at the Coliseum, to great acclaim.

Ingenious in construction and inventive in its staging, the opera recounts the doomed story of Orpheus and Eurydice, a theme running through this year's ENO season, with four very different operas on the same subject.

In great contrast to the jokey Orpheus in the Underworld of Jacques Offenbach which open the ENO season, Birtwistle's serious and through-provoking work employs a split stage and three different versions of the the three main characters – the couple and Aristaeus, who seduces Eurydice. Each is represented not only by a singer, but also by a mime and a puppet.

When the characters are together, they can appear in any of those three versions. In short, the challenge for director Daniel Kramer is considerable. But on his side he has a tried and tested design team in Lizzie Clachan (sets), Daniel Lismore (costumes) and Peter Mumford (lighting), plus choreographer Barnaby Booth.

Leading a large cast, tenor Peter Hoare plays Orpheus the Man, mezzo-soprano Marta Fontanals-Simmons, so impressive in the ROH's The Monstrous Child, is Eurydice the Woman with James Cleverton as Aristaeus the Man, soprano Claron McFadden as The Oracle of the Dead/Hecate and Robert Hayward as The Caller.