Well, readers, after much anticipation and a slight delay, Schmopera has made it to London. It’s an amazing thing to be in a city with not only a myriad of opera companies large and small, but great pickings of arts and cultural centres offering up a buffet of musical options.

We can’t wait to catch Il trittico at the Royal Opera House, and tenor Paul Appleby’s recital with Malcolm Martineau at Wigmore Hall (the first of, hopefully, many recitals at the famed recital space).

On top of that, there are arts centres like the overwhelming Barbican and its offerings of Renée Fleming in recital, Gustavo Dudamel’s Los Angeles Philharmonic, plus some pretty stunning Brutalist architecture. There’s Royal Albert Hall, where one can catch everything from the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra to Cirque du Soleil. There’s the Southbank Centre, where Karita Mattila sings Jenůfa with the Czech Philharmonic, Angela Gheorgiu appears in recital, and Opera North presents Wagner’s Ring Cycle.

Perhaps we’ll take a tour of the stunning London Coliseum, home of English National Opera, before catching their upcoming productions of Norma and Philip Glass’ Akhnaten.

Also, after some online digging, we found out that we’re pretty curious about opera companies like Opera Holland Park, Mahogany Opera Group, D’Oyly Carte Opera Company and Pop-up Opera.

So, we’d like to extend a heartfelt “hello” to all the organizations and artists that keep all of this magic happening in such great numbers. We can’t wait to get our butts in those seats.

*Shameless yet necessary post-script: Stephen Fry, if you’re reading this, I will be your opera date any old time.

Who have we missed? Plenty, I’m sure. Let us know in the comments below!