Opera in Wales was blessed this year with some five-star works.

Three of them were by Welsh National Opera (WNO), who delivered a fabulous production of Gaetano Donizetti’s Roberto Devereux.

The tale of tortured love between England’s Elizabeth I and a treasonous Earl of Essex inspired Donizetti to create beautiful duets and there are joyous moments of madness when the supposedly Virgin Queen is twirled around the stage by her courtiers on a giant throne replete with large, mobile spider legs.

This was a rarely performed opera which married imaginative staging and costumes to fine singing and acting — what was not to like?

WNO's Cunning Little Vixen, directed by David Pountney, was a charming and politicised version of Leos Janacek’s opera about a sassy young fox cub. The work bears some uncomfortable truths about our relationship with the natural world.

Sharing Vixen’s backyard prison was a gaggle of hilarious hens, strutting and clucking their way around stage. When she fails to persuade them to throw off the shackles of their male-dominated life and become strong independent women, Vixen slaughters them and escapes to the forest. This magical production would be a lovely introduction to opera for children.

WNO's Brundibar was composed as an opera for children to perform by Hans Krasa and it was famously presented in the Theresienstadt concentration camp for the Red Cross towards the end of WWII.

The child performers were herded into the auditorium by a whistle-blowing guard after the audience were handed yellow sashes to wear, echoing the opera’s participants in the Theresienstadt production, who were herded into cattle trucks and sent to Auschwitz as soon as the propaganda filming was completed.

Most were gassed immediately upon arrival, including the children, composer Krasa, director Kurt Gerron and the musicians.

WNO conductor Tomas Hanus’s mother performed in the original opera’s chorus and was saved the fatal trip to Auschwitz because of a banal administrative error.

The National Dance Company Wales's Afterimage was a sensational production of three radically different dances.

Marcos Morau’s Tundra, 30 minutes of fluid and mesmeric robotic movement, was followed by Afterimage, choreographed by Fernando Melo, in which the dancers’ interactions and movement explored a whole range of emotions which the audience could interpret and relate to in their own way.

The concluding’s Revellers’ Mass, choreographed by Caroline Finn, was inspired by Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper and was a rollicking, ebullient piece. The dancing, a mixture of classical, contemporary and traditional, was joyous.

Watch out for further performances in Spring - this is stunning work.