Maria Ewing's Fairy Queen is, admittedly, a sinuous vamp with a voice dipped in honey. But Steven Page's Lord Chancellor, for all his susceptibility to young girls, is a figure of unusual gravity who delivers the nightmare song with skill…a highly pleasurable show, briskly conducted by Richard Balcombe, that allows the audience to savour the sexual confusion that underlay those famous Victorian values.

Gilbert and Sullivan knew their audience and so does director and designer Peter Mulloy. It's that delicate balance between charm and satire.

Bruce Graham and Barry Clark are a stalwart double act as the two Earls, Mountararat and Tolloller, and Steven Page as the Lord Chancellor gives vent to his torment at forever "giving agreeable girls away" in Gilbert's very brilliant "Nightmare Song".

Maria Ewing who has graced the world’s most prestigious lyric stages, is the Fairy Queen, and she turns in a performance of real vocal and theatrical weight. While she keeps within the necessarily heightened G&S style – her boomy, low contralto speaking voice is a treat itself – she doesn’t play the role for laughs and, naturally, that makes it all the funnier.

The set for this production by the Carl Rosa Opera Company is a properly enchanting children's pop-up book vision of an Arcadian fairyland: receding cut-out frames of leafy vistas and, later, a misty moonlit Palace of Westminster.

The Lord Chancellor is Steven Page, the embodiment of the letter and spirit of G&S law: every focused baritonic note in place, every tongue-twisted word carried, and those twitches of torment in the cheekbones.

Peter Mulloy's design for the production was certainly charming, with an Art Deco inspired fairyland, and indeed, its inhabitants were equally appealing (in another era, they would certainly have attracted stage-door admirers from the ranks they were making fun of).

Of the principals, Steven Page's Lord Chancellor was exemplary, with every delicious syllable clearly audible. Maria Ewing was clearly having a ball as a diva of a Fairy Queen, conjured in equal part from Edith Evans and Anna Wintour. Bruce Graham and Barry Clark brought the Earl of Mountararat and Earl Tolloller to life and Charlotte Page was a sparky Phyllis.

WOW. I am no great fan of monster-sized stadium opera, but this production of La Traviata, imported by Birmingham Opera Company from the Verona Arena, is visually an absolute knockout. Flamboyantly directed by Graham Vick and designed by Paul Brown, it is played on a huge platform carpeted with floral tributes in allusion to the scene outside Kensington Palace after the death of Dian, Princess of Wales.

A giant nude doll serves as a staircase in the opening scene, providing an image of the way that Violetta is treated as a sex object; a giant fan covered with pornographic gaming cards unrolls to illustrate Flora’s riotous party. We are in the Gomorrah of celebrity culture, poisonously addicted to meaningless publicity, hedonistic indulgence and conspicuous consumption. Within this Vegas-style extravaganza, periodically invaded by paparazzi and surveyed by a chorus of leering, judgmental bourgeoisie in top hats and tails, the lovers vainly attempt to clear themselves some private space. Violetta’s terminal illness deforms her hideously, but instead of dying in the opera’s final bars, she walks into the flashing cameras like Norma Desmond ready for her close-up.

It amounts to a fabulous spectacle and a clever (if not all that original) concept. Inevitably, the broad brush with which it is all painted means that the overall effect is amazing rather than moving, and the subtleties of the Germont-Violetta duet and the poignancy of Violetta’s deathbed are diminished by the wide open spaces that surround them.

What further distinguishes this show from similar big-buck enterprises is the care for the music. Massimiliano Stefanelli conducts the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra sensitively, with balance of the well-judged amplification favouring the voices, singing without support from surtitles in David Pountney’s English translation.

Both the American soprano Talise Trevigne (Violetta) and the British tenor Mark Wilde (Alfredo) benefit from their mikes, but that should not detract from their fresh, pure, alter singing. Mark Holland made a burly Germont; Wendy Dawn Thompson a vivid Flora, and the chorus and extras – Mildlands amateur choirs and community organisations – sang with passion. This was a superior piece of operatic populism.

Iolanthe – Carl Rosa Opera - Touring

Is Iolanthe an even better operetta than The Mikado? With its Wagnerian echoes and virtuoso Act I finale, Sullivan’s score is a marvel and Gilbert’s parliamentary satire still has an edge, so I think it might be. In any case, Carl Rosa’s colourful, traditional and warmly enjoyable production, with Jill Pert a hilarious Fairy Queen and Charlotte Page and Giles Davies a delightful Phyllis and Strephon, is a must for all G&S fans.

With its absurd plot and witty songs, Iolanthe is Gilbert and Sullivan at their best.

While the songs are, perhaps, not as universally familiar as those from the Mikado or The Pirates of Penzance, they are nevertheless instantly recognisable as G&S. This production, by Carl Rosa Opera in their 126th anniversary year, was visually enchanting, with exquisite costumes and simple but effective sets.

The story itself is basically the same as in all Gilbert and Sullivan operas. This time a band of fairies, led by a magnificent Fairy Queen (Sue Gordon), succeed in persuading a group of pompous peers of the realm to change the laws of the land to enable fairies to marry mortals. This ensures that our heroine, Iolanthe, will not have to die because she fell in love with a human.

The star performance has to be that of Richard Suart as the Lord Chancellor, looking like a senile Rowan Atkinson, but to be fair he did have all the best lines.

Bruce Graham, playing a kilted sentry, somehow succeeded in retaining a deadpan expression as he too sprouted wings and turned into a fairy.

More than 100 years after Iolanthe was written, Gilbert and Sullivan still succeeds in making us laugh at the ridiculousness and irrelevance of the establishment.

As the programme note says, “we are left with the beautiful conception of a parliament composed of peers and fairies”. Perhaps someone should put the idea past Mr Blair?

The magic of Iolanthe remains as fresh as a dewdrop in a daisy in this delightful production by the Carl Rosa Opera Company. Peter Mulloy’s production benefits from a beautiful first-half set reproduced from the original, and Mike Leigh fans may recognise it as having been used as a setting for The Sorcerer in the film Topsy Turvy.

It is all too fashionable nowadays to knock the masterpieces of Gilbert and Sullivan, not least this unlikely tale of love and discord between the House of Lords and a troupe of troublesome fairies led by a fearsome queen. But when the Lords look lordly and a stunning array of fairies really do appear to have cracked the secret of eternal youth it only remains for a gifted set of principals to let Gilbert’s brilliant lyrics and Sullivan’s joyful, haunting and stirring melodies do the rest. Under the musical supervision of Ian McMillan the production moves throughout at a fair old lick it ensures that Simon Butteriss, an excellent Lord Chancellor, is well and truly kept on his toes during the Nightmare patter song.

Richard Morrison and the raven haired Kathleen Tynan enjoy a natural chemistry as young lovers Strephon and Phyllis, while Barry Clark and Bruce Graham provide excellent comic support as Lord Tolloller and Lord Mountararat.

Sarah Sweeting lives up to her name as Iolanthe, the banished fairy recalled from exile, while veteran Gillian Knight remains as powerful as ever as the Fairy Queen, and David Stephenson excels as a kilted Private Willis as the second act setting moves unexpectedly north.

Iolanthe continues tonight (7:30pm) and tomorrow (2:30pm and 7:30pm).