Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | English | Martin Gantner

Jan Philipp Gloger's production returns to Amsterdam with a superb cast led by Maria Bengtsson and Angela Brower. 

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comprised of the world’s leading Wagnerians, under the baton of Sir Antonio Pappano, deserve better than Otto Schenk’s outdated and cartoonish production. 

Dressed in white, with an origami swan in his hand, Robert Alagna's Lohengrin is less a Grail knight than an absent-minded daydreamer.

The Bavarian State Opera avoids the routine in a powerfully cast revival of Richard Jones' building-site production of Lohengrin.

There's little to like in Andrea Moses' production, but a fine cast and glorious playing and conducting make for an enthralling performance of Wagner's grand comedy.  

Chung's mastery of orchestral colour and texture came into its own, the brooding introduction to Act 2 making for a harrowingly apocalyptic representation of tyranny.

The in-house orchestra played out of its skin under Fabio Luisi.

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”.

Celebrating a courageous woman who is able to secure the release of her husband from prison, Beethoven’s sole opera Fidelio has music that is more compelling that its plot.

What distinguishes Noseda's Tristan most of all is especial balance in the orchestra and a transparency of sound that reveals the inner-workings of the music.

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.

With clear direction and well-executed hits (such as the lush trio from the end of the third act), the show will appeal to those with nostalgia for the production and wish to escape the biting cold with the sound of strings warmed by horns.

This performance marked Sir Mark Elder’s debut with the company and, beginning with the overture, he offered his individual interpretation of the score. He had an enormous range of dynamics and his tempi varied widely with the emotional values of each scene.

Dutch National Opera have given themselves and their patrons a smashing 50th birthday present – a production of Der Rosenkavalier that is a winner on all fronts.

James Levine led a solid and at times excellent performance of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg in Otto Schenk's traditional production that somehow lacked sparkle and excitement.

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.

A fine cast and a traditional staging of a beloved classic results in a memorable night at the opera.

Atom Egoyan’s production of Richard Strauss’ Salome is styled for extreme contrasts. You could think of it as Springtime for Herod in Judea. While patrons spilling out of limos, taxis and Wheel-Trans were gathering on this magnolia blossom-filled May Day evening in the plaza outside the opera house’s glass façade, a parade hedged by bicycle cops was filing by.

The Theater an der Wien has a storied history with Fidelio, having hosted the première of the work’s first and second versions in 1805 and 1806 respectively.

Otto Schenk's production of Der Rosenkavalier is now four decades old but it still looks quite fresh, its opulence unfaded.

Richard Strauss’ outstanding catalogue of operas is part of the staple diet of opera houses around the world. From the musically and dramatically intense scores of Salome and Elektra to the romantically lush, emotional sweepings of Der Rosenkavalier, there is something in his canon for all manner of opera enthusiasts.