Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | English | Keith Warner

The Royal Opera's revival of Keith Warner's staging feels underbaked, although interest is largely focused on the pit as the latest contender to take over from Antonio Pappano as Music Director is auditioned.

Keith Warner directs a new opera which packs in betrayal, murder, oppression, freedom, love and the Spanish Inquisition into a mere 90 minutes.

The American must be one of the few tenors to tackle both Rossini and Verdi's Moor with success. 

A standout performance from Stephen Milling complements all-round excellence of cast to provide a satisfying end to the Covent Garden Ring.

Wagner's storytelling shines brightly with the aid of a cast well out of the ordinary. Vinke, Stemme, Siegel and Lundgren make part 3 of The Ring an unforgettable evening of opera.

We start with a triumphant Royal Opera debut from Stuart Skelton, we close with Nina Stemme at her finest; a thrilling orchestral performance links the two. A memorable Walküre.

Antonio Pappano and the Royal Opera Orchestra get the Ring cycle off to a blazing start; unusually, it's Lise Davidsen and the female cast who take the vocal honours.

Brilliant staging, superb acting, a magnetic performance from Virginie Verrez and an excellent orchestral performance make a strong case for Samuel Barber's all-but-forgotten chiller.

A thought-provoking production and killer cast make San Francisco Opera's Elektra top-notch music drama.

After all the speculation, Jonas Kaufmann made his role debut as Otello at The Royal Opera – an impressive, if not unqualified, success. 

An astringent sorbet between the courses of a heavily sauced Wagnerian banquet.

January of 2017 sees the return of Verdi's Nabucco at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. This Keith Warner production of a Verdi favorite was successfully premiered by the Deutsche Oper in 2013, in the 200th anniversary year of Verdi's birth.

André Tchaikowsky's version of The Merchant of Venice combines his love of Shakespeare with his recollections of a harsh childhood as a Jew in the Warsaw Ghetto.

The main problem with Keith Warner's staging is that the director’s dominating focus is on the Jungian ‘Elektra complex’ rather than Elektra the opera.

Requiring trained opera singers to focus primarily on acting and asking actors to sing in a renowned opera house puts everyone out of their comfort zone, which is not necessarily a bad thing.

A somewhat overly manic production of Luigi Rossi's version of the Orpheus tale, originally written for the French court in 1647, is lit up by some great singing and a show-stealing comic performance by Graeme Broadbent.

The atmospheric surroundings of St Olaf's Castle in Savonlinna host a well acted and well sung Tosca, with opera and chorus on top form as well as three highly credible soloists.

Richard Ayres's Peter Pan, in a new WNO production, leaves J.M. Barrie's story dangling. 

Director Keith Warner's Royal Opera production of Berg's Wozzeck makes a truly cathartic experience that fully deserved the long ovation it received, with strong performances from Simoin Keenlyside and Karita Mattila.

Nabucco opened the season at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, marking the first time in the company’s 100-year history that Verdi’s opera has been performed. Directed by Keith Warner, known for his often flamboyant productions, and conducted by Andrea Battistoni, the opera was warmly received by a delighted audience.

Monumental in scale and scope, Götterdämmerung is a work to which it is hard to be indifferent. For many, the idea of an evening of fantasy opera lasting nearly seven hours is unimaginable, so uncongenial is the subject material and so great the attention span demanded.

If you've been brought up with the Judaeo-Christian ideal of an all-powerful, all-good God, Norse mythology can come as a bit of a shock. Wotan, the father of the gods, is philandering, deceitful, power-hungry, sentimental, violent and ultimately weak - the gamut of human frailties writ large.