Kritiken zu klassischen Konzerten, Opern, Ballett und Tanz finden | Elizabeth Watts

Die Festwochen präsentieren unter der musikalischen Leitung von Marc Minkowski Achim Freyers Inszenierung des Beethoven-Klassikers.

Marin Alsop and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment lead a searing account of Brahms' German Requiem and Vaughan Williams. 

There was a tingle to this concert, as if musicians and audience alike saw clearly for the first time what riches lie ahead.

Neither Simon Rattle nor Magdalena Kožena could resist a tendency to add sentiment.

Thea Musgrave’s pictorial writing sits well next to an exhilarating Vaughan Williams Sea Symphony. 

Contrasts are fine but they don’t always work: in a programme with a strongly Germanic flavour John Storgårds and the BBC Philharmonic stretch the boundaries.

Despite the longueurs of the piece, this performance of Solomon was pretty much perfect. 

A strong cast take us to the brink of damnation in Welsh National Opera’s revival of Don Giovanni.

Not a seat to be had for the BBCSO’s thrilling Proms performance of Mahler's Resurrection Symphony. 

Despite being a little rough and ready at times, the Rodolfus Choir and superb Philharmonia captured a moving sense of stillness in these two popular works

The Oslo Philharmonic was left to tell the story due to some rather emotionless singing.

Simon Rattle leads the LSO and a fine chorus and cast of soloists in Ligeti's masterpiece: surreal, madcap but touching the sublime.

Soprano Elizabeth Watts brought tonal richness and energy to an evening of French song with texts by Théophile Gautier, but her expressive arsenal was diminished by a bout of flu.

The ultimate musical misnomer, Rossini's last major work is beautifully sung in the wonderful surroundings of the Chapel of the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich.

Elena Langer and David Pountney's new WNO opera Figaro Gets a Divorce did not disappoint. Langer's new refreshing score had flair and imagination in a memorable performance.

Lothar Koenigs conducted a musically excellent and dramatically straightforward performance of Mozart's Marriage of Figaro in Cardiff.

A strangely mixed programme, in which soprano Elizabeth Watts and Kyra Humphreys directing Royal Northern Sinfonia displayed great musicanship and a tremendous range of emotion.

Alice Coote and Elizabeth Watts soar gloriously from the emotional heart of Mahler's Resurrection Symphony in a powerful performance from the LPO directed by Andrés Orozco-Estrada.

Sakari Oramo takes the reins for his first Last Night of the Proms, alongside dazzling violinist Janine Jansen and the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

Richard Egarr leads the Academy of Ancient Music and a stellar team of vocal soloists in an unapologetically lush and dramatic St Matthew Passion.

Who better to direct an all-Haydn programme than Adam Fischer? Co-founder of the Haydn Festival, he also founded the Austro-Hungarian Haydn Orchestra, who recorded the composer’s entire symphonic output in Haydn Hall of the Esterházy Palace, Eisenstadt, Haydn’s former place of employment.

Handel’s Radamisto has an improbable plot (although average by Baroque opera standards) which can make it difficult to stage. The most recent staging in London was the ENO production in 2010, which had a largely abstract setting.

Northern Sinfonia’s concert in Hall One of the Sage Gateshead last night challenged the audience to put aside our normal preconceptions, to see well-known composers in a slightly different light. Mendelssohn’s “Fifth” Symphony was actually the second one he wrote – at the age of only 20 – but it was not published until after his death and is not played as much as his other symphonies.

Glyndebourne has a great track record with staging Handel’s works. In recent years, there have been great productions of Theodora, Rodelinda and Giulio Cesare, all of which have proved equally popular at subsequent revival and Glyndebourne on Tour (GTO) productions as well.

Many writers dream of having letters after their name, particularly if those letters are -esque. The idea that one's prose style prompts recognition and imitation has an obvious appeal. Few could have been more surprised at attracting this suffix than Franz Kafka (1883–1924) who, having had no novels published in his lifetime urged, without success, the posthumous destruction of his opus.

Fidelio, Beethoven's only opera, is on the most universal of themes: the oppression of the innocent by the powerful and the virtue of the struggle for a loved one. It could be set at any time in any place, from Ancient Rome or China to our modern world.

On Saturday night, a large and diverse audience gathered in Leeds Town Hall to hear Leeds Festival Chorus and the Northern Sinfonia perform an all-Mozart programme, which provided an appropriate and atmospheric end to the composer's birthday week. The evening began with the Symphony No.40 in G Minor.

Early music ensembles have become an established feature in the late night prom slot. In the calm and relaxed late night setting, the warm, articulate sound of period instruments can create a wonderful intimacy within the vast space of the Royal Albert Hall.