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With a plethora of theatre seats, stools and benches it was as if Willy Decker and Wolfgang Gussman had been elected ‘Chair-men of the bored”.

The third installment of Semperoper Dresden’s Ring des Nibelungen cycle ups the ante with an outstanding ensemble performance.

Christian Thielemann and the Staatskapelle Dresden orchestra are let down by sub-optimal singers in Willy Deckers chair-laden production of  Die Walküre. 

Stefan Vinke was a convincing, petulant, pouty Siegfried in the third episode in Wagner's Ring cycle in Vienna.

Sven-Eric Bechtolf’s minimalist staging brought the protagonists’ complicated psychological interaction into focus but to the detriment of Wagner’s myth and magic.

Sir David McVicar's production of Tristan und Isolde premiered at the Wiener Staatsoper in 2013, and was then recognized as a friendly platform for singers. Here it is freshly revived with a new cast.

With its monumental sets designed by Anish Kapoor, Pierre Audi’s abstract Parsifal at Dutch National Opera is spectacular, led by the excellent Christopher Ventris, with Günther Groissböck shining in his role debut as Gurnemanz. 

With disappointing Schumann followed by engrossing, but incomplete, excerpts from Wagner's Götterdämmerung, Marek Janowski and the Oslo Philharmonic fail to make a splash.

Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s impressive conducting, Tomasz Konieczny’s tortured Telramund and the Chor der Wiener Staatsoper save this performance of  Lohengrin from becoming an ignominious swan song.

Despite a miscast Isolde, Wagner's operatic monument to love makes its mark in the production by the composer's great-grandaughter.

Robert Dean Smith replacing an ailing tenor as Lohengrin was merely adequate but the rest of the cast and the superb orchestra made the modern production of Lohengrin in Munich memorable.

Hans Neuenfels' setting of Lohengrin as scientific experiment with a chorus of rats affords thought-provoking pleasures, with star turns from Klaus Florian Vogt in the title role and Petra Lang as Ortrud.

The Bayerische Staatsoper's Ring cycle has been full of ups and downs. It ended on an up, thanks to Petrenko's brilliant conducting, a strong cast, and a fun staging.

In a new production of Wagner's Lohengrin, conductor Simone Young and stage director Andreas Homoki, along with an extraordinary cast, engineered a superb performance.

Klaus Florian Vogt's astounding portrayal of the swan knight continues to evolve and deepen in the once infamous "Rat" Lohengrin in Bayreuth in a evening of sheer brilliance and near perfection.

Sometimes the star performer isn’t one of the big romantic headline roles, or even the baritone villain. In this Siegfried, the performance that left me gasping was Gerhard Siegel’s Mime.

Wagner’s Lohengrin was the last work the master completed before settling into a mid-career six-year slump. During this compositional hiatus, he wrote the poems for his Ring operas and ruminated in print on various topics, musical and otherwise, but work on the music dramas essentially ceased.

Most of Dvořák's ten operas are rarely performed, but Rusalka, his tragic fairy tale of the water nymph who takes human form, has become popular in recent years and is a regular visitor to British opera houses. Last night's production, by directors Jossi Wieler and Sergio Morabito, started life at the 2008 Salzburg festival and has now arrived in Covent Garden.