Between Opera Ireland's production of La Boheme at the Gaiety and Opera 2005's run at the Cork Opera House, a clear emphasis was placed on the visual aspects of the respective enterprises. Opera Ireland's La Boheme lay claim to the unique feature of having sets and costumes both co-designed and created by detainees of Maiano (Spoleta, Italy) and Mountjoy prisons. The modern costumes succeeded in making relevant for a modern audience the prevalent issues of poverty in the tale while still, interestingly, glamourising the male quartet to an extent.

Opera 2005 opted for an idiosyncratic video element in The Barber of Seville, with a title screen to accompany the overture followed by multiple large-scale images suspended along the breadth of the stage, which sufficiently played up to the comedic events in the performance to render them more than gratuitous.

The mime elements in this production brought a laudable dichotomy of action, and momentum thereof, to the chaos of the Barber stage.

While the acting and structure in the Barber was generally of a high standard, only Nyle Wolfe demonstrated a good command of his vocal tasks, while fitting into the Figaro character comfortably.

Opera buff or no, Nicholas Ransley and Marion Newman were not strong enough for the musical demands of their roles. While Newman's Carmen in 2005 was a success, the upper range of Rosina in the Barber was well outside her limits and the famous opening aria exposed this all too clearly.

With a good orchestra in the pit, conductor and artistic director, Kevin Mallon often kept the tempo on the edge of the barline, making the singers struggle to spit out the infamous multi-syllabic parts, which don't work as well in the English translation, I hasten to add.

For the main roles in La Boheme, Opera Ireland sought out some of Italy's finest operatic talent.

Fiorella Burato as Mimi and Alessia Grimaldi as Musetta were simply stunning, both boasting a control of dynamic nuances in an upper range that is virtually uncontrollable. Andrea Giovannini, Rodolfo, was both powerful and flexible. The RTE Concert Orchestra performed extremely well under Annissimov, and he himself negotiated a stable bridge between stage and pit. In fact, the difficulties of the score were nowhere to be found! All in all, this La Boheme, musically and theatrically, lacked nothing.

In keeping with themes of poverty in Puccini, Opera Ireland also programmed Andre Previn's adaptation of Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire, an altogether different and more distressing examination of class division. David Brophy guided the orchestra and cast through the paces of a hugely difficult score. Some of the cast members were vague in their pitching of recitatives and, very often, diction was tarnished by efforts to realise a New Orleans accent. Good performances from Colette Delahunt and Paul McNamara served the mood of the presentation well. But what to say of Orla Boylan? If the role of anti-heroine, Blanche DuBois, is as agonising to perform as it is to watch, she has had a gruelling week. She is well-nigh perfect for this role; her height added further intrigue to the dynamics of each stage relationship. Giving us a Blanche to compete with West End standards, Boylan commanded her almost incessant vocal line with outstanding aplomb and dexterity. In the wake of her triumph, one wonders how far the limits of her career may actually extend.