Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | English | Claudia Mahnke

A cast comprised of the world’s leading Wagnerians, under the baton of Sir Antonio Pappano, deserve better than Otto Schenk’s outdated and cartoonish production. 

The final song seemed to last both an eternity and no time at all.

The chance to watch their finely gauged interpretation unfold on the Royal Festival Hall platform was a privilege.

Christian Thielemann led a memorable performance of Strauss's chamber opera Ariadne auf Naxos with a strong cast in a new straightforward production by David Hermann.

Michael Volle and Klaus Florian Vogt demonstrate that they are indeed master singers in Munich, despite adversity, in a revival of David Bösch's contemporary production.

Petrenko's Puccini is bracingly alert, filled with colour and has a romantic sweep that is utterly transporting.

Péter Eötvös conceived his opera Senza Sangue (Without Blood) as a complement to Bartók's Bluebeard's Castle. Dmitri Tcherniakov has now staged and designed Senza Sangue together with Bluebeard's Castle for Staatsoper Hamburg.

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

Frankfurt Opera's 2012 production of Götterdämmerung with its emphasis on the contemporary human issues was a successful conclusion of the revived Ring.

Day two of Frankfurt Ring featured impressive stage work and some superior musical performances, but it was not enough to create a perfect evening of opera.

Director Kirill Serebrennikov gives us a frightening new reality of the modern world beset by war and terrorism in his reimagining of Strauss's Salome

At the end, there was a profusion of boos and applause for the creative team: Castorf and co had given us a Ring cycle that was by turns infuriatingly indulgent, interestingly provocative, visually beautiful, puzzling and rewarding.

Frank Castorf's Soviet-era farm-setting does not obtrude on the emotional core of Wagner's Die Walküre, with excellent performances from Johan Botha, Anja Kampe and Claudia Mahnke, with superlative playing from the Festival Orchestra.

The first installment of Frank Castorf's controversial Ring is applauded on its 2015 revival at Bayreuth, but arguably the incessant visual action detracts from the appreciation of the music. 

Where is the line? Where does the stage end and the audience begin? This is what Australian director Barrie Kosky probes in his production pairing Purcell's Dido and Aeneas with Bartók's Bluebeard's Castle.

Attila Jun's outstanding Hagen and Catherine Foster's sublime Brünnhilde light up the last episode of Frank Castorf's puzzling Ring.

Kirill Petrenko starts Die Walküre with a flourish as Frank Castorf’s staging takes us back to the Baku oilfields in late tsarist Russia.

In this second year of Bayreuth's bicentennial Der Ring, Oleg Bryjak shines as an outstanding Alberich. Frank Castorf's production is striking but as yet incomprehensible.