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Claus Guth gives the Staatsoper Berlin a Turn of the Screw unlike any other.

What makes this production of The Rape of Lucretia stand out is the singers’ acting. It’s immediate, it’s integrated into the singing, and it’s better than anything I’ve seen in any opera production before. 

Berlin's Candide is a tour-de-force of dramatic, comic and musical brilliance.

In the third installment of Rattle's Schumann/Brahms cycle in Berlin, Rattle provided new insights into both, marred by some basic deficiencies in the performance.

Torsten Fischer's Nazified production of Strauss' Daphne in the Semperoper Dresden may leave you confused, but it receives a solid performance. 

While there are jarring visual aspects to this production of Bizet's Carmen at the SemperOper, Dresden, this was an enjoyable performance which is a feast for the ears, if not the eyes.

From introspective Mahler to flowing Schumann, Claudio Abbado is remembered at a concert with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra in Dresden's Frauenkirche.

Taking a “transatlantic bridge” as their theme for the evening, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center featured music by Ravel, Gershwin, Korngold and Antheil. 

A modern, simple production of Simon Boccanegra at Dresden's Semperoper, doesn’t interfere with the action.  

Les Arts Florissants performs Monteverdi's Seventh Book of Madrigals with a sense of spontaneity and flare at the Dresdner Musikfestspiele.

Deutsche Oper Berlin’s Billy Budd, although musically satisfying, suffers through an ambiguously set production. 

Erika Sunnegårdh’s Salome impresses in a revival of Peter Mussbach's striking production at the Dresden Semperoper. 

At the Komische Oper Berlin, West Side Story has some incredible highlights, but leaves a few too many whys to be wholly enjoyable, with some curious production details.

Read our review of John Cox's production of Strauss­' Capriccio in its 2011 broadcast from the Met Opera in New York.

As part of Bachtrack’s Baroque Music Month, Matthew Lynch examines the history of the historically informed performance movement, and discusses the situation today.

Peter Konwitschny’s Tannhäuser at Dresden’s Semperoper dates back to 1997, making it relatively old for an opera production, and though I sense this may be its last revival, it is still modern and engaging.

Simone Young and the Dresdner Philharmonie make a formidable partnership. The orchestra play with such a wonderful sound, especially in the wind and brass sections, and the range of colours they conjure is incredible. And Young clearly revels in the orchestra’s technical facility, but still always bringing something extra, and never taking away from what the orchestra can do for themselves.

Verdi’s opera Macbeth is often considered less successful than his later operas, and considerably less so than his other two Shakespeare operas, Falstaff and Otello.

The genre of semi-opera is a peculiarly British one. Emerging from the courtly Masques during the restoration, the semi-opera served as an English operatic utterance, at a time where opera was emerging as one of the pre-eminent theatrical forms in Europe.

The Palais im Großen Garten in Dresden is an interesting place to perform classical music. It’s completely unlike any other concert venue, with its wholly dilapidated interior projecting an image of lost grandeur. In many ways this is perfect for a classical music concert, especially chamber music.

I often think you can tell the quality of an orchestra by looking at the back desks of its string sections, and the players on the fringes of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic play with as much vigour as those at the front; their joy in the music is both visible and audible. The result is a strong and complex string sound, well blended, but with a coolness you don’t get from most German orchestras.

Singing polyphonic music requires a specific sound. To be truly effective there must be a beautifully rounded and well blended choral sound, but at the same time the individual lines must be clearly decipherable within the overall texture. This is a balance that The Tallis Scholars seem to find effortless.

When Simon Rattle left the CBSO in 1998 predictions of the orchestra's imminent demise came flooding in from the press. Sakari Oramo, who filled Rattle's shoes, achieved what everyone thought was impossible, further honing the CBSO's sound, using his knowledge and expertise as a violinist to give the strings more polish and precision than they'd previously had.

Beethoven took over nine years to write and edit Fidelio, his only opera. It tells the story of Leonore, whose husband Florestan is being illegally held in prison. She disguises herself as a man, Fidelio, and gets a job in the prison in an attempt to save him.

Programming is one of Simon Rattle’s fortes, and this was clearly evident her. Both works on the programme, Brett Dean’s The Last Days of Socrates and Michael Tippett’s A Child of Our Time are large-scale oratorios dealing with difficult subject matter.

Whatever our relationship with music we often have moments in our lives where the thing we’ve always loved feels like little more than a habit, or worse still a chore. You go to a concert and sit through it, and you know in your head that the orchestra played well and that the soloists were excellent, but your heart remains unmoved.

Dating from 2008, the Semperoper’s current production of Rigoletto is quite intriguing. It’s set in what appears to be a swanky 21st-century Berlin apartment – industrial, sparse and effortlessly cool – and in many ways this is an interesting choice.

J.S. Bach didn’t write an opera, but if he had, it’d probably be the best opera in the world. Fortunately for us, he wrote the next best thing, his Mattäus-Passion, a work of such dramatic power, that even in the concert or church settings in which it is usually performed, its highly emotional narrative thread is still captivating.

It’s not often that operas in English get performed in Germany, and so I was somewhat surprised to see such a large and important company as the Berliner Staatsoper taking on Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress.

Puccini is one of opera’s best loved composers. With so many popular titles to his name, it is somewhat surprising how infrequently his first great success, Manon Lescaut, is performed today. What makes this even more unusual is the opera’s universal appeal.

In the early years of the 20th century Puccini was a very happy man. His most recent opera, Tosca, was proving as successful as La Bohème, and the lucky composer was being summoned to opera houses throughout Europe for its premières. In the summer of 1900 Puccini attended the première performance of Tosca in London, and soaked in the atmosphere of Europe’s largest city.

Mozart wrote 20 operas during his relatively short life, the first being performed in Salzburg in 1767, when the composer was just eleven years old. However, it is Idomeneo, written and premièred when Mozart was the ripe old age of 25, which is usually considered to be his first mature opera.The opera takes place on the island of Crete immediately after the Trojan War.

The regular home of the Dresden Philharmonic, Dresden’s Kulturpalast, is currently being renovated, and as a result the orchestra is taking residence in a number of venues around the city, including the city theatre, and the renowned Frauenkirche. However, the majority of their concerts this season are taking place in the Albertinum, one of Dresden’s many art galleries.

Even in the world of opera, Ernst Krenek is far from a household name, but this Austrian composer was one of the most prolific composers of the 20th century, with an output encompassing symphonies, chamber works, ballets and, perhaps most significantly, operas.

The Staatskapelle Dresden is widely recognised as one of the best orchestras in the world, featuring in tenth place in Gramophone magazine’s 2008 article ranking the world’s 20 finest orchestras. This season the orchestra welcomes Christian Thielemann as its new main conductor, and this concert began his much anticipated Brahms cycle with his new orchestra.

There’s something relentlessly dark about Verdi’s Don Carlo. King Philippe and his son, the eponymous Don Carlo, are both very troubling characters, the former power-hungry and vengeful, the latter plagued by desire for his stepmother.

In his whole career as an opera composer Puccini only wrote one pure comedy, Gianni Schicchi, and even that forms part of his trilogy Il Trittico, of which the other parts could hardly be more tragic. However, La bohème is also a comedy in its own way, a comedy cut short by tragedy.

The Last Night of the Proms isn’t really a concert at all; it’s two very different concerts put on one after the other. The first is something like what we’re used to from a Prom, with big-name soloists performing alongside the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the BBC Symphony Chorus in world premières and classic works from the repertoire.

While the connections between Brahms’ Piano Concerto no. 2 and Lutosławski’s Symphony no. 3 may appear tenuous at first, there is a beautiful symmetry here. In 1878, Brahms had finally started writing symphonies, and though the first was long in gestation the second and third followed fluidly.

The music of Herbert Howells has long been a fixture in British churches but continues to be absent from our concert halls. It’s true that much of his output, and almost all of his most popular works, are for unaccompanied choir or choir and organ, but his orchestral works include two piano concertos, a fantasia for cello and orchestra and several works for string orchestra among their number.

The seventh of the chamber music Proms this year brought together two of the greatest composers of the early 20th century. Though Debussy was twelve years Schoenberg’s senior, of the two works performed it is Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire which was written first, in 1912, with Debussy’s Sonata for flute, viola and harp following three years later in 1915.

The Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester is one of the finest youth orchestras in the world. Bringing together young musicians from all over Europe, from Portugal to Russia, it is a model of international co-operation.

Concert performances of ballets are a rare event at the BBC Proms and Wednesday night gave us the Proms première of what is a very popular ballet score on the stage. Prokofiev’s ballet, Cinderella, follows the traditional story of the downtrodden heroine, unlike the two operas which take this tale as their basis, and the music overflows with the magic of this beloved children’s story.

The late-night Proms usually offer something very different from the regular programme, be it chamber music, jazz, or choral music. Thursday evening’s Prom was no exception to this, featuring the music of the somewhat forgotten Ivor Novello, sometimes considered the Andrew Lloyd Webber of the early 20th Century.

The Manchester-based BBC Philharmonic made their last appearance of this year’s Proms on Thursday night led by their newly appointed Principal Guest Conductor, John Storgårds.

We can never really know why Schubert left his Eighth Symphony unfinished, but that shouldn't stop us from playing such a wonderful piece of music. With its deathly still opening, turbulent central section and gentle slow movement, this symphony is one of Schubert's finest and most frequently performed works.

In Tosca there's a real sense of Puccini being at home. Written shortly after La Bohème, when he was right at the height of his powers, Tosca is a story of love, jealousy and political turmoil, taking place in Rome, the same city in which it was premiered.

Sergiu Celibidache, the Munich Philharmonic’s Principal Conductor from 1979 to 1996, famously described Bruckner as “God’s greatest gift”, so it was a fitting tribute to the great maestro to perform one of the composer’s greatest works, the monumental Eighth Symphony, at his 100th birthday concert.

Shortly after Rossini's success with The Barber of Seville came La Cenerentola, a reworking of the Cinderella fairy tale, but with a little less magic, and a lot more worldly comedy. It was an instant success and further established the 25-year-old Rossini as one of the greatest Italian opera composers of his day.

The plight of the introvert, stigmatised by society despite the many benefits of their contemplative natures and inner strength, is an important part of the contemporary Zeitgeist, but it is in fact nothing new.