European opera festivals this year offer something to suit every taste. New works take a bow, older ones get a fresh look, and dependable warhorses show they can still light up the house. So whether you swoon for the solidly traditional or jive to the quirkily avant-garde, you’ll find plenty to sate your cultural craving.Not Your Angel in SalzburgFans of the new and the newly imagined will find them both at the Salzburg Festival. The biggest draw for novelty seekers is undoubtedly the world premiere of “The Exterminating Angel,” by British composer Thomas Adès. Based on Luis Buñuel’s gallows-humor film of the same name, the opera involves a group of bourgeois guests at a dinner party who are unaccountably unable to leave and quickly descend into savagery.“It’s territory that I like very much, because it looks as though the people are in a room but they’re actually trapped in their own heads,” says Adès. The large cast comprises an A-list of operatic talent, including Thomas Allen, John Tomlinson, and Anne-Sofie von Otter. Adès conducts, and the staging is by Tom Cairns, who co-wrote the libretto with Adès. The composer’s fabulous, fellatio-fueled early work “Powder Her Face” has already become a much-revived classic. To be amongst the first to judge whether this will share the same fate, catch this new work at the festival before it heads to London, New York, and Copenhagen.Also on offer at Salzburg are new productions of Richard Strauss’s gorgeous mythological opera “Die Liebe der Danae,” directed by Alvis Hermanis (whose “La damnation de Faust” in Paris was an abysmal misfire), and Gounod’s “Faust,” with the wonderful Piotr Beczala in the title role. Revivals include “West Side Story,” with Cecilia Bartoli, and “Don Giovanni,” starring baritone Ildebrando d’Arcangelo.July 22 through August 31; www.salzburgerfestspiele.atForbidden Fruit and Rubberlegz in MunichThe prize for most titles stuffed into one event goes once again to the lavish Munich Opera Festival, which offers 17 full productions this year, including two new stagings of less familiar pieces along with revivals of classics by such stalwarts as Verdi, Mozart, Wagner, and Puccini.The star attraction is a new production of Halévy’s spectacular 1835 crowd pleaser “La juive,” about a young Jewish woman executed for falling in love with a Christian. “It deals with the great themes of Grand Opera: love and political conflict,” says conductor Bertrand de Billy. Kristine Opolais takes the title role and tenor Roberto Alagna sings the plum part of the conflicted father. Calixto Bieito directs.The other new production in Munich is of Rameau’s charming 1735 baroque opera-ballet “Les Indes galantes,” directed by Belgian choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and featuring Rauf “Rubberlegz” Yasit. Who could resist a dancer with a moniker like that?June 25 through July 31. www.staatsoper.deAllegory in Aix-en-ProvenceTop pick of the summer is a new production from one of the current geniuses of opera direction, Krzysztof Warlikowski, who has created breathtaking, moving, and visually stunning stagings of Janáček's “The Makropulos Case,” Bartok’s “Duke Bluebeard’s Castle,” and Poulenc’s “La voix humaine” in Paris, and now turns his attention to Handel’s allegorical oratorio “The Triumph of Time and Truth” at the Aix-en-Provence Festival. It’s sure to be full of wit and flair.Other new productions at Aix include “Così fan tutte,” set in colonial Africa and featuring the Cape Town Opera’s superb chorus; “Pelléas et Mélisande,” with the astonishing soprano Barbara Hannigan as Mélisande; and the world premiere of Moneim Adwan’s “Kalila Wa Dimna,” based on an Arabic folktale.June 30 through July 20. www.festival-aix.comViva VeronaThe Arena di Verona is catnip for anyone who adores old-fashioned spectacle. And even though it’s on the verge of bankruptcy, it’s still cranking out some jolly old revivals this season: “Carmen,” “Turandot,” and “Il trovatore” (all directed by Franco Zeffirelli), plus “La traviata” and its mammoth “Aida.” The Arena last declared bankruptcy in 2008 — Italian opera houses suffer financial crises fairly frequently — so fingers crossed it will muddle through this one too.June 24 through August 28.www.arena.itWhat, No Scandal at Bayreuth?This year’s new “Parsifal” at the Bayreuth Festival was originally to have been staged by German performance artist Jonathan Meese. Then he was tried for – and acquitted of — using the Nazi salute on stage, after which Bayreuth decided his designs were too expensive and dumped him. So far, so normal for the scandal-prone festival. The surprise is that his replacement is Uwe Eric Laufenberg, a solid director who created an exciting and well-staged “Ring Cycle” in Linz. Could it be that Bayreuth will avoid controversy this year? That would be the biggest shock of all.July 25 through August 28. www.bayreuther-festspiele.deComedies at GlyndebourneThe granddaddy of country-house opera festivals, Glyndebourne, is tickling audiences’ funny bones this year with wall-to-wall comedies. There are two new productions: “Il barbiere di Siviglia,” starring the dazzling chatelaine of Glyndebourne, Danielle de Niese, and Berlioz’s rarely staged “Béatrice et Bénédict,” an operatic reworking of “Much Ado About Nothing.” Revivals include an excellent “Die Meistersinger” and Peter Hall’s unforgettably magical production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” To see the latter and then wander among the equally magical oaks of Glyndebourne’s gardens is a real midsummer treat.May 21 through August 28. www.glyndebourne.comCome to AlbertopolisThe world’s largest classical music festival, the Proms at London’s Royal Albert Hall is offering several operas, in both semi-staged and concert form. Glyndebourne is sending its “Barbiere” (July 25); the Royal Opera is performing its new “Boris Godunov,” with Bryn Terfel (July 16); Karita Mattila stars in “The Makropulos Case” (August 19); and Russian coloratura soprano Albina Shagimuratova sings the title role in Rossini’s “Semiramide,” about an incestuous, homicidal queen (September 4).July 15 through September 10. http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms
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