A recurring theme on the operatic stage. Who can forget the masked ball scene in Verdi's Un Ballo in Maschera - an opera that is centred on both sex and politics? Or Britten's Albert Herring, whose teenage hero seeks out alcohol and sex; and the same composer's Death in Venice, based on Thomas Mann's symbolic story of a distinguished writer whose obsession with a beautiful Polish boy leads not only to self-awareness, but also to death? A Verdi masterpiece, Otello, turns Shakespeare's play about love and sexual passion into a tour de force, while two operas by Donizetti - Lucrezia Borgia and L'Elisir d'Amore - will thrill and entertain, the former involving sex and death, and the latter sex and love. And, of course, let us not forget Bizet's Carmen, in which sex and jealousy lead to death.