Otello

Zeffirelli's lavish Verdi production will annoy the purists (in comes ballet music written for the Paris premiere, plus the odd surprise flashback, out goes Desdemona's plaintive 'Willow' song), but it does enshrine Domingo's magnificent Moor, one of the great characterisations of the past decade or so, for those of us unlikely ever to see him do it in the opera house. The settings are lavish rather than particularly imaginative, and Zeffirelli sometimes loses the surging power of the tragedy behind ever-bustling foreground detail. Yet the singing's the thing, and the principals have been able to translate their stage performances for the camera in a way that will captivate old hands, but won't put off newcomers to filmed opera.