Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Christof Loy

A new production of Fedora at the Deutsche Oper Berlin warms up the cold German winter, featuring strong lead performances by Vida Miknevičiūtė and Jonathan Tetelman.

Christof Loy’s psychological staging returns to the stage of Finnish National Opera, with Swedish soprano Elisabet Strid compelling in the title role. 

Massenet’s take on Goethe’s blockbuster novella of unrequited love and suicide is handled with great subtlety by Christof Loy and Marc Leroy-Calatayud. Benjamin Bernheim and Marina Viotti lead a starry vocal cast.

Christof Loy and Carlo Rizzi score a great success in bringing Respighi’s rarely performed opera the Deutsche Oper Berlin. 

Christof Loy’s thoughtful staging enlightens the character of the protagonists in Sophocles’ tale of matricide; Sir Antonio Pappano extracts great nuance and beauty from Strauss’ score.

Christof Loy's 2019 production proves even more compelling second time round, with excellent acting and a properly heroic tenor performance from Brian Jagde.

Gianluca Capuano and Les Musiciens du Prince open the Pfingstfestspiele with a bang in a profound interpretation of Gluck’s masterpiece, where Cecilia Bartoli shines in her debut as Orfeo.

Christof Loy's production of Tosca at ENO replaces Catherine Malfitano’s and, despite being visually attractive, suffers certain muddled ideas. It boasts, however, a strong trio of singers who deliver a committed performance on the production's first night at the Coliseum. 

Asmik Grigorian is captivating in an unobtrusive production of Puccini's three one-act operas. Under Franz Welser-Möst, the Vienna Philharmonic is on top form.

Christof Loy unearths hidden treasure with an opera by Franz Schreker long since buried after taking Europe by storm in the 1920s.

The Opernhaus Zürich revives Christof Loy’s production with a new young cast under the baton of Fabio Biondi.

Christof Loy would seem to be the perfect director for Covid-era opera, his stripped back production of Verdi's rare middle period opera directed remotely from Austria.

This is no Liederabend with singers taking their turn to file up to the piano. It’s a fully staged drama in which baritone Vladislav Sulimsky’s character reflects on his past loves and losses.

If you have dismissed this opera as overstuffed kitsch in the past, you might want to take a look at this production. It could well change your mind.

Leoncavallo's opera is a rare example of a tragic, verismo opera where not a soul dies... neither by natural causes nor foul play.  

It's difficult to believe Salzburg could have cast a finer Così in Loy's Covid-reduced production in the Großes Festspielhaus.

Chrisoph Loy's new Oslo production of Eugene Onegin only somewhat succeeds in its desire to create a meditation on loneliness, but superb musical performances still make it an utterly compelling piece of music theatre.

Short of the three lead stars of its opening, The Royal Opera's La forza del destino remains a thrilling evening, powered by Christof Loy's interesting staging and virile singing from Christopher Maltman.

Orchestra and chorus reach great Wagnerian heights in this new production by Christof Loy, a study of an artist in revolt against hypocritical sexual mores.

The hottest opera ticket in London this season sees Jonas Kaufmann and Anna Netrebko reunited on the Royal Opera House's stage for the first time since 2008. It was worth the wait. 

Vienna's Theater an der Wien stage a seldom performed opera by Carl Maria von Weber with an excellent cast, orchestra, and chorus.  

The 2002 production of Handel’s masterpiece is revived with a solid cast under the baton of Riccardo Minasi.

Carè, Stundytė and Pursio all shine as singers and actors in an intense, exciting production at the Finnish National Opera.

Malin Byström convinces as the Feldmarschallin with Adrian Angelico as a strong Octavian, under the baton of Alan Gilbert.

After her triumph at the Royal Opera House in London as Salome, Byström comes home to Sweden to great acclaim in Giordano’s opera.

Christoph Loy's Oslo production of Wozzeck is a dramatic triumph, with gripping performances from a cast led by Audun Iversen's desperate title character.

An able cast sings in Christof Loy’s non-interventionist and insightful production of Verdi’s panoramic tragedy, conducted with vivid detail by Michele Mariotti.

This revival of Christof Loy's 2014 production of Alcina launched the New Year at Oper Zürich in magnificent fashion.

Beautiful singing at the Royal Opera House in Stockholm for the Scandinavian première of Giordano's Fedora.

Anno Schreier's successful new opera Hamlet is the first of a series of three Shakespeare-inspired offerings from Theater an der Wien this season. 

Christof Loy’s minimalist staging for Khovanshchina at Dutch National Opera has the advantage of clarifying a reputedly fragmented plot. 

Though certainly not the most heartwarming of tales this Christmas season, this is a production one shouldn’t miss.

Jane Archibald and Ruxandra Donose provide a compelling prologue to Ariadne auf Naxos, while Karita Mattila's majestic performance lights up the opera seria second half.

A dynamic cast recently gave the Zurich audience the “stuffs” of Vincenzo Bellini’s tragic opera: the power of duty, law and honour.

Christof Loy's modern-dress production of Donizetti's Roberto Devereux for the Bayerische Staatsoper is deliciously, darkly ironic. A dream cast handles the dramatic and musical challenges well, though the voice of the star sounds worn for this star vehicle.

First class performances from Stephen Gould and Nina Stemme are backed by a magnificent orchestral performance in the Royal Opera's revival of Christof Loy's spartan production.

After his final opera, Falstaff (1893), Verdi founded a home for retired musicians. Director Christof Loy related these two achievements by setting the opera in the nursing home...

There's much to recommend this Turco, including stunning vocal fireworks by Olga Peretyatko and moments of comedic gold in the staging. But this production also reinforces some ugly racial and gender stereotypes.

The fortunate audience of Barcelona's Liceu has much to enjoy a wonderfully performance of Arabella conceived as an intimate drama of human psychology.

67-year-old diva Edita Gruberova presents a devastating portrayal of a desperate mother supported by a strong cast in a stark modern production.

As revivals go, Karita Mattila and Jane Archibald make the Royal Opera's Ariadne auf Naxos a must-see.

A strong cast stars in Christof Loy's unsettling rethinking of Richard Strauss’ Arabella at the Dutch National Opera.

Christof Loy’s new production of Falstaff for the Deutsche Oper Berlin is a conundrum. While the opera itself tells a story of comeuppance, Loy’s production seemed to be about the positive physical effects of playing pranks on your neighbors.

German director Christof Loy’s second production for the Royal Swedish opera was of Wagner’s Parsifal. The cast is rather on the luxurious side as well, sporting three of the greatest Wagner singers working today – two of them Swedish, no less!Loy’s Parsifal is a distinctly human drama.

Alceste is the short and sombre story of a wife who gives her life to save that of her husband, King Admète of Thessaly, a deed which ultimately convinces the gods to reprieve both of them. Gluck, hoping to avoid the over-decorated vocal style then in vogue, set this plot to unadorned vocal lines to give depth to the underlying emotions.

Written in 1819 and belonging to the opera seria chapter of Rossini’s career, the florid score of La donna del lago doesn’t so much respond to as resist its unabashedly romantic libretto.

Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal began their collaboration on Die Frau ohne Schatten (The Woman Without a Shadow) with utopian ambitions. Unfortunately they weren’t the same ones. For Hofmannsthal, this would finally be the opera where his poetry would be illuminated by rather than buried under the music.

La apuesta del Teatro de la Zarzuela por Christof Loy se revela acertada con una deslumbrante producción de El Gato Montés.

Idealización de tonalidades luminosas y pulso musical en las líneas románticas de Massenet, capitaneadas por el estreno de Xabier Anduaga en el papel del joven protagonista.