There's more to Salieri than Mozart's fictional assassin, as depicted on stage and screen – notably in Amadeus, the film that celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. Rousset has already made a strong case for Salieri's operas, with productions and recordings of Tarare, Les Horaces and Armida now available (Kublai Khan will follow), and the ensemble's experience is clear from the finely wrought overture. But any attempt to establish Salieri as a serious composer is undermined by the additional explainer scenes; these feature Salieri himself (Christoph Wagner-Trenkwitz), transported to 2022. Once again, the premiere is thwarted by international politics – and the comparison between the 18th-century Russo-Turkish wars – a reason for the opera's original burial – and the current conflict is cleverly conceived.

A bearded cast of Kublai Khan | Photo Credit: Herwig Prammer

In 2021 I attended Guildhall School of Music & Drama's research webinar series 'Queering the Conservatoire'. This was not just about supporting LGBTQ+ students: turning the adjectival 'queer' into a verb reflected recent doctoral studies about queer musical interpretation. Perhaps Kublai Khan director Martin Berger was at the same conference; here was a production that leaned into its queerness to the point of almost over tipping. Lipi – sung as a trouser role by Lauranne Oliva – and Posega (Leon Košavić, in place of Äneas Humm, who was injured four weeks into rehearsals and will sing on the recording) indulge in BDSM. When the men remove their beards, the women don them, with gender-fluid outfits and day-glo galore. Kublai Khan even brings out a rainbow-themed celebratory LGBTQ+ chocolate. The couple next to me are laughing – proper belly laughs that befit a comic opera. As Lipi strips to a fake naked chest clad in a leather harness and rides Posega like a horse, the woman in front of me covers her face. She does not return after the interval.

The quality of the soloists – Marie Lys's delicate phrasing as businesswoman Alzima (all while holding a real-life Pomeranian dog); Carlo Lepore's (Kublai) richly resonant bass – stood out among the rainbow/condom ticker tape. As did the Kublai Khan chocolates, styled to look like the Mozartkugel so prevalent in Vienna and 'played' by Máté Rácz and Monica Sandulescu, who intermittently trotted around stage in a superb parody of 18th-century galant. As we left the hall, we were handed a Kublai Khan truffle – feeling as though I'd already gorged an entire box, I set mine aside for another day.