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The Baden-Baden Easter Festival presents an extraordinary performance of Elektra, with Nina Stemme in the title role and the Berliner Philharmoniker, led by Kirill Petrenko, in a stark and modern production. 

Set in a 1930s music school, Sergio Morabito, Jossi Wieler and Anna Viebrick's new production of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg at Deutsche Oper Berlin has some inspirational ideas but they often get in the way of the music.

The performance of Wagner’s Lohengrin transcends Andreas Homoki's curious staging, redeemed by vocal and orchestral performances that shine in their nuanced artistry.

Six excellent singers bring out the best in Wagner's dramatic narrative, marred only by a Ride of the Valkyries that fails to convince.

Hartmut Schörghofer's updated concert staging receives strong singing from everyone and a thrilling orchestral performance.

The passion of Alban Berg's music under Donald Runnicles fights against a disjointed production by Ole Anders Tandberg.

The ubiquitous cycle of life and death was explored in two contrasting works by Musgrave and Brahms in Richard Farnes’ debut with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus.

Johan Reuter is gripping in Krzysztof Warlikowski's powerful vision of the universal, timeless horrors of prison, but visual clutter distracts from Janáček’s music.

German theatre director Uwe Eric Laufenberg freely incorporates some of Stanley Kubrik’s horror story concepts into his Elektra, but in ignoring both Sophocles and Strauss, is a long way from shining.  

Johan Reuter leads an all star cast in a revelatory performance of George Enescu's masterpiece, aided by spectacular La Fura dels Baus staging.

Accompanied by an ebulliant Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, a fine Danish cast popped open the comedic bubbly at a concert performance of Nielsen’s Maskarade at the Concertgebouw. 

In addition to incorporating twelve-tone rows for each character and within larger musical units like canons and chorales, the entirety of the opera itself is palindromic in structure, with performers whose characters died gruesome deaths during the first act returning as new characters in the third.

The child-woman Lulu is a reflective receptacle for desire in Dutch National Opera’s extraordinary filmic production.

The Royal Danish Opera's new production of Carl Nielsen's first opera Saul og David updates the action to the present-day Middle east and, while well-sung, comes off as overly simplistic.

Who needs scenery anyway? A blistering Elektra from Semyon Bychkov, starring Christine Goerke, lights up the BBC Proms by sheer force of performance. 

Semyon Bychkov gave a reading of such clarity and quality that everything seemed obvious. In his hands, the orchestra was a precision instrument, and for Strauss fans, whether or not you like Claus Guth's staging, this production is a must-see.

The unnecessary celebrations of Richard Strauss’ 150th birthday seem to have begun early at the Metropolitan Opera. Two weeks after this Die Frau ohne Schatten comes Der Rosenkavalier, and a few months after that Arabella. By the standards of Strauss at the Met, Herbert Wernicke’s Frau is still new at only a dozen years old.

Nabucco opened the season at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, marking the first time in the company’s 100-year history that Verdi’s opera has been performed. Directed by Keith Warner, known for his often flamboyant productions, and conducted by Andrea Battistoni, the opera was warmly received by a delighted audience.

Revivals of 21st century operas on the stages of major houses are rarer than hens' teeth, so the Royal Opera were making a strong statement when they announced the revival of Harrison Birtwistle's 2008 The Minotaur, with the original director and much of the original cast.

Those closing bars of Alban Berg’s Wozzeck, tottering away into nothingness, is one of the great nexus points in musical history.

The message in Paul Curran's new production of Rimsky-Korsakov's The Tsar's Bride is a simple one: violent and powerful men are the same in every era. And, of course, no good can result from the violence. If the opera's title made you expect a happy and light-hearted occasion, think again: it's definitely not that sort of Royal Wedding.

Over a hundred years after its première, Richard Strauss's opera Salome retains its ability to shock. The opera was adapted from Oscar Wilde's retelling of the biblical tale, in which Herod's daughter demands and receives the head of the prophet Jokanaan (John the Baptist) on a silver charger.