“At times I get up in the middle of the night and stop all the clocks. All of them,” an aging princess sings in “Der Rosenkavalier,” Richard Strauss’s sprawling opera of love, devotion and loss. But this year several productions around the world have been using clocks in their set designs, either as a subtle background item or so central that the timepiece seems like a character itself. Perhaps the opera most connected with clocks is “L’heure espagnole” (“Spanish Time”), Maurice Ravel’s one-act farce about a neurotic clockmaker and his unfaithful wife. It is being staged Aug. 22-26 at the Grimeborn Opera Festival in East London — with a twist.

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Persons: “ Der, ” Richard Strauss’s, ”, “ Boris Godunov, Maurice Ravel’s Organizations: East London — Locations: “, East London