Agostino Steffani (who?) may have been consigned to a footnote in musical history but here's why he was such a big deal in the realm of 17th century courtly drama. He wrote extravagantly – Niobe was the first of his operas where the aria count fell below 60 (the great and the good always had time on their hands) – and he wrote with feverish theatrical daring. The overture to Niobe begins benignly with well-regulated pomp and circumstance but suddenly we are assailed by the clatter of martial trumpets and drums (sounding here from the highest balcony) wilfully designed to cut across the courtly processional as if at all costs to stop it progress. Shock-horror - and the curtain has not yet risen.

It was one of the most controversial programmes in television history. When Nick Griffin, leader of the British National Party, was invited on to BBC 1's Question Time, it sparked massive protests. The programme, earlier this year, had extra edge because Mr Griffin was next to the black academic and playwright Bonnie Greer.

Deloitte Ignite opened up the Royal Opera House in a weekend festival of contemporary art. Evening concerts were cheaply priced; events during the day were all free. The performances and installations went from the inventive to the bland.

If you go down to the Royal Opera House, you're sure of a big surprise. Next weekend, Covent Garden will be transformed into a series of different forests as part of Ignite, the annual three-day contemporary arts festival. There's a shimmering Floating Forest, with real trees hanging from the beams, in the Paul Hamlyn Hall, while 200 discarded opera costumes from the ROH archives will create a surreal Faded Forest in the Conservatory, alongside mannequins and an Amazonian soundscape. The Linbury Studio will be transformed into a Reclaimed Forest of recycled telegraph poles and a reflecting pool by the opera designer Dick Bird. And in the entrance hall, the Anglo-French artist Alice Anderson has been commissioned to create a forest of tumbling auburn hair titled "Mother Web", which will remain in place for a year.

Dmitri Tcherniakov’s revelatory staging of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin unfolds in rich Chekovian detail and with such an acute behavioural eye that at times one feels more of a participant than an observer.

The Bolshoi Ballet's triple bill is all over the place. It starts with a bad Petrushka, pulls up with Alexei Ratmansky's Russian Seasons, then abandons the Russian theme for the pretend-Spanish dazzle of Paquita. It's an unbalanced evening, but there's plenty to enjoy by the end.

No doubt about national identity when the opening ten minutes or so of the drama is given over to an impatient lust for food and wine.