Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Simon Thorpe

The Royal Opera orchestra, chorus and a large cast bring their A game to Sir Antonio Pappano's last run as music director.

Using Jonathan Dove and Graham Vick's distillations of Siegfried and Götterdämmerung, the company concluded its miniature Ring cycle in under five hours, without sacrificing musical or dramatic tension.

In a 70th anniversary season dedicated to adaptations of Shakespeare, this concert performance made a compelling case for Karl Goldmark's final opera.

Since their creation in 2010, NIO has brought unconventional opera productions to Northern Ireland. Their Rigoletto is bold, emotional and engaging with a stellar cast of local and international talent.

With a glinting voice of a youthful sheen, like bracing Nordic air, Kirstin Sharpin was entirely convincing as the obsessed dreamer, Senta.

There are no answers, nor indeed many probing questions, in this Scottish Opera revival of Sir David McVicar’s production from 2008, but it is sumptuous and enjoyable.

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

André Tchaikowsky's version of The Merchant of Venice combines his love of Shakespeare with his recollections of a harsh childhood as a Jew in the Warsaw Ghetto.

In Opera Holland Park's latest foray into obscure verismo, an excellent orchestral performance and high quality singing fails to translate into a compelling drama.

The Welsh National Opera took to the Hippodrome stage for the Bristol leg of their UK tour ofCarmen. This was a revival of Welsh National Opera’s production in the late 1990s, co-produced with Scottish Opera.

Stephen Barlow’s staging of Puccini's Western is easy on the eye, if short on verismo. Susannah Glanville impresses as the barkeeper with a heart of gold.

A note in the programme honestly records the trepidation Opéra de Baugé felt in taking on Verdi’s Aida, a tougher prospect than the other operas with which it’s in rep, Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore and Johann Strauss II’s Die Fledermaus.

Welsh National Opera’s contribution to the Wagner bicentenary is in the form of a summer season entitled Wagner Dream, consisting of Jonathan Harvey’s opera of the same name, a run of Madam Butterfly, and Antony McDonald’s new production of Lohengrin. Lothar Koenigs conducted an excellent performance of Wagner’s romantic opera at a packed Wales Millennium Centre.