Live, Video: Kritiken zu klassischen Konzerten, Opern, Ballett und Tanz finden | Madeleine Boyd

Salome Jicia delivers a vocally impressive and emotionally committed Norma, but Orpha Phelan’s post-apocalyptic staging fatally weakens Bellini’s sacred tragedy.

Opha Phelan’s staging presents the action as a grand, Freudian social experiment. It’s a risk – but the production is lifted by outstanding performances from the cast and the Academy of Ancient Music.

Superlative singing, hilarious antics and an energetic production make Donizetti's Le Convenience ed inconvenience an exhilarating success. 

Natascha Metherell relocates the action to an Italian film studio of the 1950s, which looks great but brings problems. 

Orpha Phelan has fun staging Félicien David’s opéra comique, moving the action from Kashmir and Samarkand to Leila O’Rourke’s Tea Emporium.

It’s a risky business to describe comic nuance or timing, so please take my word that these qualities were as pitch-perfect as the vocal prowess on display.

Composer-librettist Adamo does full justice to Louisa May Alcott's 19th-century bestseller, one of the most widely read works in American literature.

Buxton International Festival presents Rossini's exhilarating La donna del lago with fine singing, but it is undermined by Jacopo Spirei's staging. 

Murder in the library? No, this isn't a re-run of Poirot, but a new production of Verdi's Macbeth to open The Grange Festival's 2022 season.

As the UK continues to emerge from lockdown, Leeds Playhouse and Opera North stage Sondheim. 

Nicola Raab's production doesn't quite provide the bold rethinking it promises, but stylish execution and a fine cast make for an effective modern Traviata. 

It is a thing of wonder that Roberto Devereux is one of Donizetti’s lesser known works. Whether on account of its challenging soprano part, or its fussy Tudor setting, it is rarely performed, but contains some of the composer’s most beautiful – and indeed memorable – arias and duets.

Alessandro Talevi's production of Don Giovanni, conducted by Christoph Altstaedt, receives a welcome revival at the Grand Theatre, Leeds. 

Propora's Mitridate at Schloss Schwetzingen lacks dramatic sense (blame librettist Cibber and director Spirei). But exciting music strongly delivered makes a case for more Porpora in the repertoire.

The performance of Margherita d’Anjou seen at the Festival della Valle d’Itria in Martina Franca was the first staged in modern times.

Strong casting but intrusive direction makes this Fidelio a bizarrely intriguing experience, salvaged by some memorable singing. 

In the opening night of Teatro Real's new season, Mariella Devia proved why she is one of the best bel canto singers of the last decades.

An operatic thiller? Can such a thing exist? With an edgy score, Søren Nils Eichberg’s opera Glare tries hard to convince, at least initially.

Opera North's La traviata at the Grand Theatre, Leeds, makes an excellent start to Opera North's new season.

I’m sure before long I’ll see a production of Daisy Pulls It Off that opens with modern day soldiers charging onto the stage waving rifles about – it seems to be the first image directors reach for these days.