Live, Video: Kritiken zu klassischen Konzerten, Opern, Ballett und Tanz finden | Southbank Sinfonia

A post-mortem fantasy that’s as compelling as it is confusing.

Vladimir Ashkenazy conducts the Southbank Chamber orchestra in a programme dedicated to the interpretation of classical dance forms.

Rather than compiling a Top Ten of Baroque Hits, The Enchanted Island amounts to much more than a gallimaufry of choice gobbets, seasoned with French galenterie.

Fine performances from a confident cast brought some terrific singing as well as depth of characterisation in Stravinsky’s only full-length opera.

A compelling and energetic debut production from a new opera company in the raddled surroundings of Wilton's Music Hall.

Paring the action down to just four singers, La Tragédie de Carmen is the perfect vehicle and venue for a handful of the Royal Opera's Jette Parker Young Artists to strut their stuff.

British Youth Opera revives a forgotten operatic entertainment from the 1960s with flair and professionalism.

The Incontri in terra di Siena festival's incoming artistic director, Alessio Bax, goes down a storm with Beethoven's "Emperor".

In-Nocentes is wonderful. Michael Keegan-Dolan and his team have drawn from the gifts and commitment of these young dancers to create original, rich and extraordinary dance.

There’s something decidedly odd about pitching up at Glyndebourne sans picnic hamper, wrapped up in heavy layers, the aroma of mulled wine wafting through the foyer... 

The Royal Opera House get us in the mood for Halloween with a deliciously creepy, lean production of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies' The Lighthouse. 

This young ensemble was curiously lacking in youthful energy in a concert of orchestral classics with a few too many fluffed notes. 

Figaro rules the roost on the main stage this autumn, but buried in the Nibelheim of the Linbury Studio, Rossini'ss early comedy La scala di seta receives its first ever production by the Royal Opera.

En l'église de St Martin-in-the-Fields à Londres, la Maîtrise Notre-Dame de Paris se joignait aux musiciens du Southbank Sinfonia pour un voyage mozartien éclairé à la bougie. 

The Secret Marriage has been a hit from its earliest days. At its 1792 première in Vienna, King Leopold II was so delighted by the performance that he ordered the whole company to repair to his mansion, be treated to a magnificent dinner, “and then play the entire opera through again, immediately”.

Wit is the ruling spirit of British Youth Opera’s delectable production of Benjamin Britten and W.H. Auden’s operetta Paul Bunyan, directed by Will Kerley.

The last night of the Bristol Proms was experimental. A full house at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre was greeted by artistic director Tom Morris to introduce this semi-staged version of Handel’s Messiah – last performed in the venue in 1782, when it was too sacrilegious for churches. Morris said that Handel was “a dramatist”, and to honour this, he took a more theatrical route with this performance.

British Youth Opera have been fostering the best of young British vocal talent for 25 years, and it’s a delight to see them celebrating their anniversary this year with a work precisely as old as they are: Judith Weir’s A Night at the Chinese Opera dates from 1987, and made for a lively showcase for these rising stars at London’s Peacock Theatre last night.

The Jette Parker Young Artists double bill of Jules Massenet’s rare one-act opera Le Portrait de Manon (sequel to Manon) and Hector Berlioz’s Les Nuits d’été, featured romance, mystique and sumptuous singing.