Performer: Matthew Plenk

Franz Welser-Möst thoughtfully paired Schubert’s final mass with Bartók’s final piano concerto, the latter featuring Mitsuko Uchida in her 100th Cleveland Orchestra appearance.

A fresh and compelling performance of Carl Orff’s classic. Aaron Copland’s rarely-performed Statements filled out the orchestra’s last concert performance at the Blossom Music Festival for 2018.

The Cleveland Orchestra celebrated its 100th anniversary with a memorable concert performance of Tristan und Isolde with magnificent Nina Stemme.

In James Conlon's final performance as music director of Ravinia, he presented a magnificent Flying Dutchman with a stellar cast.

The Met's revival of Lucia di Lammermoor was a collaborative success, with singers, orchestra and chorus cohering well.  

While the term “Eurotrash” gets thrown around more often than it should, it is one that has unfortunately become synonymous with many of the Wagner opera productions that take a non-traditional approach. As opera-goers go, I tend to sympathize with the directors and find that this approach can work fantastically well in bringing Wagner’s logistically impossible scenarios to life.