Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | English | Carmen Giannattasio

John Bell's reworking brings Tosca to 1943 Nazi-ruled Rome, featuring gorgeous sets and Carmen Giannatassio's striking Opera Australia debut in the title role.

An impressive performance of Verdi's masterpiece Un ballo in maschera based on of the original libretto.

While Bellini’s two-act opera Norma underscores the religious wars between the ancient Druids and Romans, it also highlights an emotive personal conflict that is veiled in deceit and cultural discrepancy.

Even stronger than first time round, Michieletto's impressive staging is complemented by an outstanding double role debut from Hymel and a heartbreaking Santuzza from Elīna Garanča.

The 2013 Salzburg production of Damiano Michieletto's Falstaff finally arrives in Milan where the director sets the opera in “Casa Verdi”, the Milanese residence for elderly singers and musicians.

The Staatsoper's new Falstaff is a production that is attractive not only visually, but also in terms of the varied musical color.

A gripping double bill of  “Cav &Pag” from Italian director Damiano Michieletto at Covent Garden includes a few surprise guest appearances. 

At the Dutch National Opera, director Àlex Ollé from La Fura dels Baus stages a dark and monochromatic Trovatore, in which the four stars shine.

Roberto De Simone's staging evokes a fabulous out-of-time China, and perfectly accompanies the majesty of Puccini’s last and unfinished opera. De Simone chooses to stop the opera at the point of Puccini's death, without Franco Alfano's finale.

A Puccini classic gets the classic treatment in this timeless production at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. 

Director Michieletto’s playful staging, Stefano Montanari’s expressive conducting and stylish singing from a cast of seasoned Rossinian singers make for a thoroughly enjoyable new production of the too rare Il viaggio a Reims at the Dutch National Opera.

Nucci's studied performance of the title role in Simon Boccanegra ensured Verdi's drama shone profoundly. 

Joyce DiDonato, Carmen Giannattasio and Joseph Calleja star in a superb concert performance of Donizetti's Maria Stuarda at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. 

In the bicentenary anniversary of Giuseppe Verdi, tributes are aplenty. On Saturday evening, Los Angeles Opera presented a new production of the Italian master’s final work, Falstaff, though that wasn’t all.

Il Trovatore has doggedly survived in opera’s hit charts despite dispensing generous quantities of hair-raising as well as eyebrow-raising content. Verdi’s music is intoxicating, of course, but there is something to this work that makes it accessible beyond reasoning.

After years of opera going, is it really still possible for me to be moved to tears by a tenor’s wail at the sight of a consumptive heroine dying tunefully in her bed at the end of the last act? I didn’t think so, but on the basis of last night’s Covent Garden performance of La Bohème, the answer would appear to be yes.