Francesca Zambello’s production of Don Giovanni may only be 10 years old, but is already showing signs of decrepitude. Even back in its youth in 2002-3, this staging never had much of a spring in its step, but at least there were some fantastic casts to compensate. Bryn Terfel, Anna Netrebko, Simon Keenlyside and Erwin Schrott have all taken their turn here, but even with Gerald Finley returning in the title role there’s little the current incumbents can do to do rescue this aged and confused attempt at a seduction.

Imagine what John Cleese might have done with the tale of a slutty sleepwalker who finds herself staying at a packed provincial guest house? Bellini doesn't even touch on farce, let alone psychological investigation. He instead follows the archetypal bel canto formula: dramatic thinness and vocal display.

Whether or not we believe Wagner’s retrospective rebranding of the opera as a prototype music-drama, “a complete, unbroken web”, Der Fliegende Holländer reliably makes for a vivid evening’s entertainment. Which makes it all the more strange that this is only the work’s third outing at the Royal Opera in almost 20 years.

A legend on the operatic stage, Sir John Tomlinson (CBE) has sung with all the major British opera companies, made countless recordings, and for sixteen years was a fixture at Bayreuth, where he performed leading roles in each of Wagner's epic works. Throughout his career he has worked regularly with English National Opera and with The Royal Opera, Covent Garden, where in 2008 he created the title role in Harrison Birtwistle's The Minotaur.

“I wanna blow you all… a kiss” are our hapless heroine’s first and last words in this opera dealing with Anna Nicole Smith's real-life rise and fall in strip-cartoon, morality-ballad style. But it’s not by any means the shallow, voyeuristic tack-fest you might have expected from, among others, the creator of Jerry Springer: The Opera.

Sweetheart American mezzo Joyce DiDonato stayed firmly behind the proscenium arch for yesterday evening's Royal Opera performance of Massenet's Cendrillon - reviewed by theartsdesk on its opening night - but another Covent Garden regular, former ballerina and non-irritant presenter Deborah Bull, was soon schmoozing the crowds in Trafalgar Square, assembled to watch the fairytale unfold in real time beneath Nelson's Column. It was a big occasion for the long-deceased composer, who having enjoyed short-lived fame went into near eclipse except for Werther and Manon over the next century but last night supposedly had 50,000 pairs of eyes up and down the UK on one of his most delicate creations courtesy of the free BP Summer Big Screens.

After a heap of ashen revivals, it was time for the Royal Opera to take us to the ball in style. Which it does, for the most part. Of course, Massenet's "fairytale after Perrault" isn't Aida, Butterfly, Fidelio, Macbeth orTosca, all of which have deserved better from the house. Though spun out at less than heavenly length and, sometimes, so much per yard, it does have the composer's special brands of discreet charm and gentle humour, especially well served by two world-class voices out of the four leads.

It’s the oldest coup de théâtre in the postmodernist playbook – the curtain rises to reveal an audience staring back at us – but still, in the opening seconds of Willy Decker’s Peter Grimes, one of the most effective. Our theatrical doubles here are sinister creatures indeed, massed rows of sombre Victorians whose brutal Christianity is no less severe than the angles of John Macfarlane’s set. As gazes meet across the courtroom in that moment we confront ourselves, discover ourselves in the folk of the Borough, implicated absolutely in their tragedy.