This year's Glyndebourne Festival has three new productions including two operas never before done at Glyndebourne.

Among the directors taking part are Sir Peter Hall, David McVicar, Richard Jones and Nikolaus Lehnhoff. The conductors include Mark Elder, Louis Langree and Ivor Bolton.

Leading the cast of singers are famed Swedish soprano Anne Sophie von Otter and rising Irish star Orla Boylan.

New general director David Pickard told The Argus: "It is going to be another splendid Festival.

"We welcome back Sir Peter Hall who will direct a revival of Britten's Albert Herring and I think we will have a very special Carmen with Anne Sophie von Otter in the title role."

The Festival begins on May 16, with a revival of Graham Vick's Don Giovanni.

This production is set on a slag heap, features period and contemporary dance and ends with the Don going mad after eating rotting horseflesh.

Louis Langree conducts the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Jonathan Veira reprises his role as Leporello.

On May 19, comes the first of the new productions: A rarely-seen William Gluck opera, Iphigenie en Aulide.

Sacrifice, love, heroism and mythological gods are all examined in this story of a daughter prepared to die for her father, Agememnon, and his country.

Christoff Loy directs, Ivor Bolton conducts the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and Sussex-based baritone Gerald Finley sings the role of Agememnon.

Glyndebourne virtually re-invented Janacek's status as an opera composer and his works are now a regular part of every opera house's repertoire.

Kat'a Kabanova is Janacek's tale about the adulteress of the title, bullied by her mother-in-law and her alcoholic son.

Nikolaus Lehnhoff directs, Irish soprano Orla Boylan, one of the stars of English National Opera, sings the title role and Jiri Kout conducts the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

Carl von Weber's Euryanthe is the second new production this year and will be conducted by Mark Elder and directed by Richard Jones.

It has a Gothic plot and shattered all conventions when it first appeared because there is no dialogue.

This year's undoubted hit will be David McVicar's reading of Carmen, with Anne Sophie von Otter as the gipsy girl. What will this cool Scandinavian make of the role?

And what will David McVicar, the man who gave us an orgy scene in Rigoletto at Covent Garden this year, make of the piece, his first opera for Glyndebourne?

David Pickard said: "We haven't started rehearsing yet but McVicar has a reputation for getting the very best out of his singers. Whatever he does, I am sure this will be a Carmen to remember."

Albert Herring is Benjamin Britten's comic tale of the search for a virtuous girl to be May Queen.

Sir Peter Hall revives his 1985 production, described by one critic as being "definitive".

Sussex-based soprano Dame Felicity Lott sings Lady Billows and the LPO is conducted by Glyndebourne's new music director Vladimir Jurowski.

Call 01273 812321 for details.