Live, Video: Kritiken zu klassischen Konzerten, Opern, Ballett und Tanz finden | Yannis Thavoris

Presenting a work like Carmen is a punchy move by a conservatoire. The Royal Academy of Music's production has conceptual weaknesses, but features some good singing. 

Scion of generations of sitar players, Nishat Khan is the perfect person to tell the "greatest love story never told" behind India's most iconic building.

A 16-year interval sounds more like a resurrection than a first revival, but the return of Stephen Barlow's staging of Tosca is well worth the wait.

A new production of Humperdinck's charming fairy-tale opera is always to be welcomed, particularly when performed with such enthusiasm by the students of the Royal College of Music.

Stephen Barlow's intelligent production makes Gounod's grand opéra as dramatic as it is tuneful.

Darkness sits alongside comedy in a new production of Humperdinck's delicious children's opera.

The evening’s most revelatory performance came from the young countertenor Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen as Medoro. 

A fine cast convinces in Dutch Reisopera's new Tosca, staged in a dystopian police state.

Problems of orchestral balance cloud Olivia Fuchs's straightforward, compelling staging of Janáček’s tirade against the rigidity and hypocrisy of small town society.

Stephanie Marshall's Romeo and Sarah-Jane Brandon's Giulietta make this production of Bellini's version of Romeo and Juliet utterly compelling.

Intelligently staged and brilliantly sung, Scottish Opera can be justly proud of their new production of Ariodante. It is all about the oranges really.

Cette nouvelle production du plus écossais des opéras de Haendel s’en tire avec les honneurs, malgré un orchestre à la peine.

With Lawrence Zazzo's spectacular counter-tenor voice, Handel's Orlando finds an ideal interpreter.

In this double bill, we get a violently enthusiastic little farce from Donizetti which, though fiery, is definitely not his best work; but next, we are treated to the revival of a brilliant, beautiful one-act opera by Malcolm Arnold. 

Stephen Barlow’s staging of Puccini's Western is easy on the eye, if short on verismo. Susannah Glanville impresses as the barkeeper with a heart of gold.

Scottish Opera revives Sir David McVicar's Madama Butterfly. It still looks wonderful. The music, players and singers tell the harrowing story magnificently.

A double bill of rare operas: it’s like Christmas has come early in London. The Guildhall School are pairing Debussy’s The Prodigal Son with Donizetti’s sparkling court comedy Francesca di Foix.

Die Zauberflöte is probably the greatest singspiel ever composed (only Mozart's own Die Entführung aus dem Serail can compete for beauty), but it is rather difficult to stage because of its highly complicated story and abstruse and rather ambiguous masonic symbolism. But the music sweeps all before it with its extraordinary beauty, quality and variety.

Donizetti’s one act opera, Rita, composed in 1841 formed the first half of last night’s double bill at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. The second half comprised another late work, Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta, composed in 1891 to a libretto by Tchaikovsky’s brother, Modest. Rita turns out to be far more entertaining than the plot outline promises and deserves to be more widely seen.