They tend to dress up more for performances at the Garnier than at the 20th-century granite and glass opera house at Bastille, opened in 1989.

WSJ: Raising the Opera Curtain: A Bird's-Eye View of the Palais Garnier

There will also be an opera by Philip Glass, based on Franz Kafka's The Trial, part of ROH's focus on making new work "the core of what we are".

BBC: Royal Opera House announces contemporary projects

Mr. Ives saw Mr. Glass's abstract opera "Einstein on the Beach" when it first came to the Metropolitan Opera House, and he's a long time fan of the composer's music.

WSJ: Parsing a Playwright's Universal Language

Mr Glass's fellow American minimalist, John Adams, brought the nightly news into opera.

ECONOMIST: Contemporary opera

When the mortars destroyed the Sarajevo Opera Hall, the cellist felt as if he were inside the building, as if the bricks and glass that once bound the structure together had become projectiles that sliced and pounded into him, shredding him beyond recognition.

NPR: Excerpt: 'The Cellist Of Sarajevo'

Sir Terry, like Sir Peter, comes from modest origins in Merseyside, but whereas the quiet, lean Sir Terry still collects visitors personally from the lobby of Tesco's shabby headquarters in Cheshunt, the charismatic, rotund Sir Peter directs Sainsbury's fortunes from a glass-and-steel office block in central London and seems most at home at the Royal Opera House, where he is a director.

ECONOMIST: Face value