Opera North

Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, Dublin Tues-Sat 17th 7.30pm 0818-719377

LYRIC OPERA

Grand Opera House, Belfast Tues/Wed 7.30pm £16-£36.50 048-90241919

NATALIA GUTMAN, RTÉ NSO/ALAN BURIBAYEV

NCH, Dublin Tonight 8pm €10-€35 01-4170000

STEPHEN HOUGH (PIANO)

NCH, Dublin Sun 8pm €20-€55 01-4170000

There’s a broadening of operatic repertoire at the Grand Canal Theatre – sorry, the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, as the venue became known last Wednesday under a sponsorship deal. This week the theatre is hosting its first Handel opera as part of the first visit there by Opera North.

The Leeds-based company is presenting two Tim Albery productions, of Puccini's Madama Butterfly(with French soprano Anne Sophie Duprels (above) in the title role on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday 17th), and Handel's Giulio Cesare (with Pamela Helen Stephen as Caesar on Wednesday and Friday 16th). The ticket prices are high for the Puccini (€30-€120 ) but much lower for the Handel (€20-€60), and there's a discount deal if you purchase tickets for both shows.

If it's Butterflyyou're after, you're spoilt for choice this week. Vivian Coates's Lyric Opera is taking its Butterfly, seen at the NCH in Dublin last month, for two nights to the Grand Opera House in Belfast, which, unless I'm mistaken, marks the company's first opera production in a theatre in Ireland. The title role is sung by Jee Hyun Lim, and Lyric Opera currently has the benefit of the RTÉ Concert Orchestra in the pit.

The RTÉ NSO's programme at the NCH tonight is an all- Russian affair, with principal conductor Alan Buribayev offering Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony and Prokofiev's late Sinfonia Concertante for cello and orchestra (with Natalia Gutman). The evening opens with excerpts from Rimsky- Korsakov's Tsar Saltan.

And the excellent Stephen Hough returns to the NCH on Sunday for a piano recital in which his own Broken BranchesSonata shares the programme with sonatas by Beethoven, Scriabin and Liszt.