Once regarded as Verdi's lost opera because of early censorship and controversy, Stiffelio has now established its rightful place in Verdi's canon. In this 1993 recording from the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, José Carreras, as the Protestant minister whose faith is shattered when he discovers his wife's adulterous liaison with a family friend, leads a fine cast that includes Catherine Malfitano, Gregory Yurisich, Gwynne Howell and Robin Leggate under the baton of Edward Downes.

Reinhold Glière was Russian-born and of Belgian extraction. His maturity saw Russia's Imperial days but most of his life followed the 1917 Revolution. He died three years after Stalin and Prokofiev. There's no indication of his being a dissenter. For him there is no 'Testimony'. Unlike Medtner and Rachmaninov he did not flee to the West when the barricades went up.

Here's further proof that Edward Downes is an Elgarian to be reckoned with. This account of the Second Symphony is up there with the very best. In the first movement, Downes steers a clear-sighted course: here's the same unexaggerated, splendidly authoritative conception heard from this conductor in the concert hall. Unlike some rivals on record, Downes resists the temptation to give too much too soon, and this feeling of power in reserve lends an extra cumulative intensity to the proceedings; indeed, the coda here is absolutely thrilling. The ensuing Larghetto sees Downes striking a near-perfect balance between introspection and heart-warming passion. Both the Rondo and finale are ideally paced – the former not too hectic, the latter flowing to perfection, culminating in an epilogue of rare delicacy.

If there are lingering doubts about the Royal Opera House's artistic renaissance after its mid-1990s doldrum years, David McVicar's gritty and sexy production of Rigoletto should blow them all away. One of the principal reasons is McVicar's decision to emphasize the tyrannical nature of the Duke (beautifully sung by Marcelo Alvarez), and the appalling social injustice that springs from a corrupt leader: his court is a place of physical and sexual abuse (graphically, but by no means gratuitously, depicted). This violence throws the dual nature of Paolo Gavanelli's energetic, insectlike Rigoletto into relief, making his sycophancy seem all the worse and his vengefulness all the more sympathetic.