Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Sir Andrew Davis

At the Minnesota Orchestra, Sir Andrew Davis contrasts works of Beethoven with Berg’s Violin Concerto and a piece the draws on traditional Chinese folk dance. 

Outstanding performances of A Child of Our Time and the Concerto for Double String Orchestra at the Barbican.

Angela Hewitt gives magical Mozart with Andrew Davis and the BBC Philharmonic and four twentieth century masterpieces looking back to the past complete a rewarding and unusual programme

The festival's final concert marks several endings, including the fulfilment of Sir Andrew Davis' Elgar oratorio cycle with the RSNO.

The BBC Philharmonic plays Fourth Symphonies by the most important British symphonists, Vaughan Williams and Tippett, to make up a short, but intense programme. 

Warmly affectionate Vaughan Williams contrasting with angular and psychologically charged Wood, followed by an emotional performance of Elgar's The Music Makers.

The EIF’s cycle comes to a fabulous end with RSNO and Andrew Davis leading a luxury cast, Christine Goerke’s emotionally powerful Brünnhilde a highlight. 

John Harbison's Second Symphony takes the listener from Dawn to Darkness, while Vaughan Williams' Fifth offers “the similitude of a dream” in Boston. 

The double choir triumphs in the MSO’s massive, mostly successful attack on an English choral masterpiece all too rarely performed in Australia.

A celebration of composer, soloist and orchestral excellence in an eclectic, if slightly eccentric, gala opening program to launch the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra's 2018 season.

Two works of personal victory, written at virtually the same point in history and against a backdrop of suffering, made up this very successful concert conducted by Sir Andrew Davis. 

Sir Andrew Davis conducts the BBC Philharmonic in Elgar, Rachmaninov and Sibelius with pianist Kathryn Stott.

David Pountney's new production of Die Walküre for the Lyric Opera of Chicago incisively charts the tectonic shift of control over the future from Wotan to Brünnhilde.

A sensational Die Walküre from Sir Andrew Davis and the RSNO at the Edinburgh Festival that will be talked about for years.

Sir Andrew Davis led the BBC SO in a recreation of Sir Malcolm Sargent's 500th Prom, a lengthy programme that failed to inspire.

Outstanding solos, orchestral discipline and novelties in musical arrangement made for another quality symphonic experience from the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.

The MSO and some suitably angelic singers deliver a remarkably bright, joyous interpretation of an already uplifting oratorio.

An account of The Beatitudes that will do much to reassess this neglected work was coupled with a polished “Enigma”.

Sir Andrew Davis also led superb performances of Delius’ Brigg Fair and Strauss’ Don Quixote, with Mark Kosower and Wesley Collins as soloists.

This production, directed by Tim Albery and with sets and costumes by Tobias Hoheisel, boasts more than one megastar.

In spite of some questionable staging, Lyric Opera of Chicago opened its Ring cycle on a strong note with a stellar cast, notably featuring Eric Owens’ role debut as Wotan.

A varied concert of new music by Anthony Payne, Max Bruch's 1st Violin Concerto with Ray Chen, a Tchaikovsky rarity and a rousing early work by Vaughan Williams

The interpretation was crowned by the most rapt rendition of the last movement imaginable, all yearningly luminescent and full of spellbinding nobility of tone from the orchestra.

Sir Andrew Davis conducted the RLPO in a programme of Mozart and Bruckner, with Esther Yoo as violinist in Mozart's “Turkish” concerto.

The coda to Juliet's "Convoi funèbre" crystallised all that was exceptional about this performance of Berlioz's symphonie dramatique.

It is the fusion of textures and styles coming from the pit that gives Bel Canto a memorable musical profile.

Love, light, levity, life. A joyful performance of Franz Lehár's Parisian operetta offers catharsis in troubling times. 

Bringing out the unabashed colour and detail of the score, Andrew Davis delivered a superb reading in the pit, tightly coherent and with exemplary attentiveness to articulation. 

Kissin's formidable take on Tchaikovsky's warhorse was a night to remember.

A star-studded cast headlined by Isabel Leonard and Lawrence Browlee share a hilarious production of La Cenerentola – complete with rat ballet corps!

A successful concert hall Rake's Progress at the Edinburgh International Festival with an impressively strong cast of singers, Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Royal Conservatoire Voices under Sir Andrew Davis.

Delius resurrected, Wood introduced, Nielsen explored and thrilling Ravel at the BBC Proms.

Two classic scores by Berlioz and a musical memorial to Bliss’ brother made a deep impression. 

David Pountney's production of Mieczysław Weinberg's opera The Passenger travels to Chicago. 

Amber Wagner sings Elisabeth with a deepened command and an access to a horizon of sound that make it seem as though her throat had found six more inches of release. It’s a phenomenal performance.

Only the slightest of quibbles with a fun, frothy new production of The Merry Widow at The Met. 

The Met's holiday special, Hänsel und Gretel, is a treat not only for young children but for adults with its sophisticated music, excellent singing ensemble and orchestra playing, as well as its witty production.

Late in the opera, in the calm that settles after a vaudeville of ballet dancers and Italian singers, Fleming’s poise pervades the Countess’s closing rumination over love and the nature of art. It’s a concert piece nestled in Capriccio’s narrative bustle, and to hear Fleming sing it is to be reminded of her talents as a communicator in music within and beyond the opera stage.

This production's consistent visual beauty forms the setting for this Don’s musical approach. It is a testament to this ensemble that Mariusz Kwiecień can’t steal the show in spite of his utterly commanding physical and vocal presence as the Don.

Under the baton of Sir Andrew Davis the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra perform for the first time at the BBC Proms, with mixed results.

A brave choice for a Proms season opener, but Elgar's ponderous score is presented in the best possible light by the BBC forces.

Sir Andrew Davis lead the BBC Philharmonic along “The Mancunian Way” and down to Salisbury Plain for Vaughan Williams' Ninth Symphony. 

Edward Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius tells the story of a pious man’s death, his travels through Purgatory and finally being accepted into Heaven. It is perhaps not the most dramatic of tales, but one filled with a sense of redemption and intense spirituality. 

Amanda Majeski and Joyce DiDonato are exceptional as Vitellia and Sesto in David McVicar's production of La clemenza di Tito at the Lyric Opera.

Ana María Martínez takes on the title role as Dvořák’s nymph Rusalka in a new Lyric Opera production by David McVicar.

What is perhaps even more remarkable than the unabashed grandeur of the new Parsifal at the Lyric Opera of Chicago is the degree to which its spectacle draws on the images and genres of 20th-century media technologies including popular music.

The silence at the end of the concert said it all. To have plunged the attention of the entire Royal Albert Hall into utter silence for a whole minute after the music has finished was an impressive feat. Such was the audience response to Mark Padmore’s closing walk down the back of the stage, as Captain Vere.

It’s so good to hear Tippett’s ravishing opera, The Midsummer Marriage, performed in full at the Proms, particularly in Britten’s centenary year. Tippet’s work is like an antidote to Britten’s drier, more literal operatic style – so overflowing with warmth, colour and hope.