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Lotte de Beer’s new retelling at the Volksoper reintroduces the element of shock into Bizet's popular opera. 

Director Lotte De Beer's thoroughly realized, aesthetically rich and beautifully executed production of Janáček's masterpiece is anchored by strong performances from Nina Stemme and Svetlana Aksenova.

Never before has human impotence been so cruelly portrayed on stage.

An exemplary cast, an opulent orchestra and unforgettable images in Arnold Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder.

In a successfully streamlined staging, Stefano Landi’s obscure, overpopulated opera got the royal treatment by a superior cast and orchestra.

Stefan Herheim packs puns and gags into a three-hour long show, but less could have been more. 

A strong cast, a lyrically simmering orchestra and lucid staging make this a Tristan und Isolde to treasure.

Stefan Herheim's eagerly awaited production of Berg's Wozzeck distances us from the emotional heart of the tragedy by portraying the story as a hallucinatory death-room experience.

At its local Antwerp première, David Bösch’s new production of Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Das Wunder der Heliane makes it the only house ever to have mounted twice.

Mozart's very notes become servant to the cause in an ingenious staging of Le nozze di Figaro by one of today's most esteemed directors.

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. 

At the basic level Tristan und Isolde is an opera of hormones, not happenings; fathoms deeper it explores human experience at a point where sense is dumb and flesh retires – as close to heaven and hell as it’s possible to go without first having to die.

An updated but otherwise traditional Flying Dutchman directed by Jan Philipp Gloger offers plenty of enjoyment at Bayreuth, although it might not linger in the memory as long as the more controversial fare at the Festival

In Vienna State Opera's new production of Rigoletto, director Pierre Audi brings us close to a Rigoletto less freakish, more identifiably everyday. 

Christian Thielemann and his orchestra were the stars of an excellent performance of Wagner's Der fliegende Holländer. 

Pierre Audi's final Holland Festival closes with Calliope Tsoupaki's new ancient Greek oratorio about Oedipus.

For any opera lover, a first visit to Bayreuth is something of a pilgrimage to the holy land. Musically, I wasn’t disappointed, as the Dutchman’s leitmotif rose softly from the invisible orchestra, soon to be enveloped by the swirling storm brewed up by Wagner and conductor Christian Thielemann.