Live, Video: Kritiken zu klassischen Konzerten, Opern, Ballett und Tanz finden | David Kravitz

Odyssey Opera's Tudor themed season opens with Saint-Saëns' Henry VIII in which Ellie Dehn's Catherine of Aragon steals the show. 

A Gounod rarity comes to Boston for a concert performance under the ever-enterprising Gil Rose.

Two charming operas featured splendid singing in a haze of choreography, staging and projections in a setting that had the feel of being live in a surround sound movie theater. 

Jonas Kaufmann and Camilla Nylund tackle the roles of Tristan und Isolde for the first time in Andris Nelsons' all-Wagner concert. 

With Andris Nelsons about to debut as Kapellmeister at the Leipzig Gewandhaus, a collaboration with his Boston Symphony was inaugurated in style. 

John Relyea owns the stage as Méphistophélès in Boston Symphony’s Faust. 

Disparaged by critics and his fellow musicians, Tchaikovsky's The Maid of Orléans is performed by Odyssey Opera. 

Attention to clarity and detail without fussiness is a wonderful thing in the presentation of a Rossini comic opera, and Opera Saratoga in upstate New York scored a triumph with their new production of La Cenerentola by assembling a fine all-around team.

Between Baz Luhrmann’s recent film The Great Gatsby, Northern Ballet’s The Great Gatsby currently at Sadler’s Wells, and Elevator Repair Service’s circulation-testing, eight-hour Gatz at the Noël Coward Theatre last year, Londoners such as myself could be forgiven for feeling all Gatsbied out (in truth, Gatz could probably have achieved that by itself).

In James MacMillan’s Clemency, three strangers visit Abraham and Sarah. The aging couple make them welcome and receive the news that Sarah will bear a son – to Sarah’s disbelief. They appear to be angels, coming to bless the couple. But as the travelers prepare to leave, they reveal that their next stop is one of condemnation. The people of the twin towns, Sodom and Gomorrah, will be destroyed.

Just as it seemed that contemporary American opera had sworn off melody completely, composer John Musto brings us The Inspector. Paired with Mark Campbell's brightly comic libretto, Musto's score sweeps the hilarious plot along, punctuated by clever musical references and familiar tunes.

I took my nephew, a vocal arts student, to see Bach's Passion According to St. John partially so he could experience Boston Symphony and partially to introduce him to choral music – which is some of my favorite. I hadn't been to Symphony Hall since my childhood and was glad to see nothing had changed. One has the sense that generations have passed through the hall in a continuous flow.