Best new Royal Opera spring productions: the top artists and directors

It's a passionate spring at the Royal Opera House where love propels the drama in four large-scale productions.

First up is Wagner's The Flying Dutchman. This is the perfect opera for those who want to dip their toes into Wagner but find the four-opera Ring marathon a little daunting. In this standalone piece, a man is doomed to sail the seas until true love liberates him from his accursed wanderings.

In Tim Albery's atmospheric production, baritone Bryn Terfel is the lonely Dutchman, with Swedish soprano Elisabet Strid as Senta, the young woman who takes pity on him, and tenor Toby Spence as her rejected suitor Erik (six performances, 29 Feb to 16 March). Click here for details.

Then look out for Latvian soprano Asmik Grigorian as the young geisha betrayed by an American naval officer in spring performances of Puccini's Madama Butterfly. Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier's very beautiful production is a Royal Opera classic (nine performances 14 March to 15 April plus 12,15, 18 July). Click here for details.

Aigul Akhmetshina takes the title role in a new Covent Garden Carmen from 5 April. Photo: Lera Nurgalieva

All eyes will be on the brilliant Russian-born, London resident mezzo-soprano Aigul Akhmetshina when she takes the title role in a new production of Bizet's Carmen. No stranger to the role of Carmen – she has just triumphed as the seductress at the Metropolitan Opera in New York – Akhmetshina is sure to find something new about her character in Damiano Michelangelo's interpretation. The Italian director is the man behind Covent Garden's evergreen Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci, and hopes of revealing new insights are high.

Carmen is the contrary factory worker who shrugs off the attentions of her many male admirers but is drawn to one whose interest lies elsewhere. Akhmetshina sings Carmen at nine performances 14 March to 5 May). From 5 to 31 May, seven more performances feature Vasilisa Berzhanskaya in the title role. Click here for details.

The spring season closes with a revival of Donizetti's dramatic masterpiece Lucia di Lammermoor, directed with female insight by Katie Mitchell and with spectacular design by Vicki Mortimer. Sopranos Nadine Sierra and Liv Redpath share the title role (nine performances, 19 April to 18 May). Click here for details

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Operas are sung in the original languages (German, French and Italian), with English surtitles. Madama Butterfly is screen at cinemas across London on 26 March with an Encore screening on 31 March. Carmen is in cinemas on 1 May, with an Encore on 5 May. Click here for cinema screening details