Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Jacquelyn Stucker

Inspired by Annie Ernaux’s The Years, Philip Venables’ new opera widens the canvas to take in the whole of Europe’s postwar generation. 

The French premiere of the British composer's opera will be the undisputed high point of the Grande Boutique's season: a perfect confluence of music, staging and cast.

Sir George Benjamin and Martin Crimp’s new chamber opera receives a powerful UK premiere in the Linbury Studio at Covent Garden. 

Majestic performances all round in Handel's oratorio, with a strong solo team led by Allan Clayton as Samson, and a convincingly well-drilled performance from the Philharmonia Chorus.

In her first appearance with the orchestra this season, Nathalie Stutzmann offers overly tentative readings of Verklärte Nacht and Siegfried Idyll, alongside perfunctory excerpts from Don Giovanni.

Profound questions as the Tanglewood season closes with the traditional appearance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. 

Guth's intelligent production comes with a Karita Mattila masterclass and an outstanding cast, intense to the point of pain. 

Donald Runnicles conducted an imaginative chamber version of Strauss' testamentary Lieder, plus Elgar's own take on the concerto grosso form in his Introduction and Allegro.

Blazers and breastplates! This Rinaldo is already eight years old! It’s played at the BBC Proms while almost 40 performances have graced Glyndebourne’s festival and tour up to now, so it must be doing something right.

Anna Netrebko triumphs at the Deutsche Oper in a concert performance of Cilea’s masterpiece, under the baton of Michelangelo Mazza.

The young singers spin any raw material into opera gold, sending the audience home as uplifted as if they’d just glugged a bellyful of Pimm’s.

Barrie Kosky's divisive production returns to The Royal Opera but has lost its zing. 

A post-mortem fantasy that’s as compelling as it is confusing.

Visual eye candy, excellent singing and superb Handelian playing by Laurence Cummings and the London Handel Orchestra are marred by poor diction and limited acting expressivity.

Herheim places the composer at the centre of his opera in a staging that's clever and erudite but somewhat cold; musical performances are mixed.

Interesting ideas and a brilliant orchestral performance aren't enough to overcome a visually dull staging, predictable choreography and a lack of chemistry between the protagonists.

Lengthy but full of melodic invention, Semiramide finally made her triumphant return to the Royal Opera in David Alden's fine new production.

David Alden's staging of Alcina mines the rich theatricality of one of Handel's best-loved operas with enchanting but also perplexing results. 

Le chef et le metteur en scène reconstituent librement l'opéra de Jean-Philippe Rameau daté de 1733, sur un livret de Voltaire, dont la partition est perdue. Une proposition aussi puissante que pertinente.

Marc Minkowski dirige d'une main de maître l'opérette de Strauss, dans une version mise en espace parfois frustrante mais portée par une distribution idéale.

Sous la direction sensuelle de Leonardo García Alarcón et dans une mise en scène survitaminée de Ted Huffman, les jeunes étoiles de la distribution proposent une incarnation formidable de l'opéra de Monteverdi.

Andrea Marcon dirige la Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana, apropiadamente adaptada a la música barroca, y un magnífico reparto vocal en uno de los títulos más importantes de Handel.

Der langersehnte Herheim-Ring kann nun endlich mit einem aufschlussreichen und spannend erzählten Rheingold beginnen.

Die russische Sopranistin weiß das Münchner Publikum vom ersten bis zum letzten Ton in der Wiederaufnahme von David Aldens Inszenierung zu fesseln.