Opera in the City Festival, Bridewell Theatre

Well-known operas and forgotten masterpieces go side by side at Bridewell Theatre when Opera in the City, curated by Time Zone Theatre Ltd, tells stories in music aimed at opera-lovers and newcomers alike.

Ringing up the curtain (1, 3 and 4 Aug) is Rimsky-Korsakov's Mozart & Salieri, which arrives at Bridewell at the end of a tour of Britain and Denmark. In it, the Russian composer explores the theory that the jealous, second-rate Salieri poisoned his rival, the boy genius Mozart. In the second half comes Mascagni's Zanetto, the story of a poet and his lover, Silvia.

Next comes A Florentine Tragedy (7, 9 and 10 Aug), a psychological thriller by Alexander Zemlinsky, in which a woman, her husband and her lover are caught up in a cat-and-mouse game. Based on an unfinished play by Oscar Wilde, it is sung in English, with piano accompaniment.

In Lanza (2, 5 Aug), as both composer and singer, Andrew Bain traces the music and life of 1950s Italian tenor Mario Lanza in a one-hour opera flashback that relives his greatest hits, including E Lucevan le Stelle, Granada, You’ll Never Walk Alone and his most famous song, Be My Love.

Finally, in another double-bill, Even You, Lights, Cannot Hear Me (8, 11 and 12 Aug) is a new operatic spectacle based on a monologue from Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull. Award-winning artist and composer Simone Spagnolo combines elements of operatic singing, chamber music and performance art in a completely new take on what defines opera.

It is paired with Sarah Toth's pastiche chamber opera Nero Monologues. Toth uses a range of sung, spoken and physical expression to get inside the mind of the dying 1st-century Roman emperor. Baroque, modern and contemporary sounds are layered with present-day poetry in a piece for singer, dancer, piano and string quartet.

With audience and singers cheek by jowl and the fascination of hearing rarely performed or new music, Opera in the City Festival feels like the place to be.