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Illusion – theatrical illusion – is the theme of Pierre Audi's staging of Alcina, Handel’s beloved opera which finally makes its debut in Rome. 

The Bayerische Staatsoper's revival of a controversial production containing Georg Baselitz’s artwork succeeds with strong musical performances led by veterans of Wagnerian operas.

Dutch National Opera revives Pierre Audi's acclaimed Die Walküre for the very last time.

In the final instalment of aus LICHT, the Helicopter String Quartet lives up to the publicity hype and choirs perform marvellous feats.

The second day of aus LICHT is one mesmerising highlight after another, including the Netherlands Youth and Children’s Choirs in one magical and one sinister procession.

The performers in Part 1 of aus LICHT at the Holland Festival are amazing, but the production doesn’t rev up until the Archangel Michael goes on his dizzying world tour.

Never before has human impotence been so cruelly portrayed on stage.

Instead of telling a story of spiritual enlightenment and ultimate redemption through faith, Pierre Audi's reading is bereft of mystery and magic.

An exemplary cast, an opulent orchestra and unforgettable images in Arnold Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder.

In a successfully streamlined staging, Stefano Landi’s obscure, overpopulated opera got the royal treatment by a superior cast and orchestra.

A strong cast, a lyrically simmering orchestra and lucid staging make this a Tristan und Isolde to treasure.

Until now I have been fairly sceptical about theatrical stagings of oratorios and other sacred works, so I was curious but cautious about the staging of Monteverdi's Vespers at the Holland Festival.

Staged at Dutch National Opera’s workshop, Madrigals reduces the distance between public and performers and creates a real sensorial experience. 

With its monumental sets designed by Anish Kapoor, Pierre Audi’s abstract Parsifal at Dutch National Opera is spectacular, led by the excellent Christopher Ventris, with Günther Groissböck shining in his role debut as Gurnemanz. 

Fabio Luisi conducts a solidly cast Guillaume Tell with panache, Rossini's final opera returning to the Metropolitan Opera after a long absence. 

Clarinetist Kari Kriikku sauntered through the aisles of both the orchestra and audience, spinning around in two complete 360s and surely dousing the flabbergasted listeners in the floor seating with saliva.

Louis Andriessen’s new opera is a masterly expedition into the grand and grotesque mind of Athanasius Kircher, polymath and fantastist, but it is hampered by a clumsy libretto.

At the basic level Tristan und Isolde is an opera of hormones, not happenings; fathoms deeper it explores human experience at a point where sense is dumb and flesh retires – as close to heaven and hell as it’s possible to go without first having to die.

It's quite a contradiction when you call a work Passion and then spend 90 minutes resisting all emotions. 

In Vienna State Opera's new production of Rigoletto, director Pierre Audi brings us close to a Rigoletto less freakish, more identifiably everyday. 

The revival of Pierre Audi’s production of Handel's Alcina at the Amsterdam Stadsschouwburg is blessed with an excellent cast, led by Sandrine Piau who gives an unforgettable performance as the sorceress.

The staging of Pierre Audi’s production of Handel’s Tamerlano at the Amsterdam Stadsschouwburg is all understated elegance, well matched by Les Talents Lyriques’ refined playing.

With its minimalist but grandiose sets, the imposing sound of the Choir of the Dutch National Opera and the excellent conducting of Marc Albrecht, there is much to be enjoyed in this revival of Pierre Audi’s Lohengrin in Amsterdam.

Pierre Audi's final Holland Festival closes with Calliope Tsoupaki's new ancient Greek oratorio about Oedipus.

Holland Festival revives Pierre Audi’s 2012 production of Handel’s Orlando. Conducted by baroque specialist René Jacobs and featuring an strong cast, it is a great occasion to witness American countertenor Bejun Mehta in what has become, over the past decade, his signature role.

Julian Anderson’s Thebans, a bold attempt at condensing Sophocles’ three Theban plays into a single opera. The result is a powerful piece of theatre which drags the audience into the story of Oedipus’s horrific downfall and death, with its ensuing civil war.

As the year of Wagner’s bicentennial approaches its end, De Nederlandse Opera concludes its latest revival of Pierre Audi’s Ring cycle with his 1998 production of Götterdämmerung.

The inability of human beings to communicate or even empathise, and the monstrous consequences that gap in misunderstanding leads to, is the foundational idea of Die Eroberung von Mexico, and Wolfgang Rihm’s dense and frequently brilliant music.

Miraculous as Jonathan Harvey’s music is, it seems reductive to call Wagner Dream an opera. Half the cast, after all, don’t even sing, but act: it’s a sincere meeting of music and theatre in a way that opera usually isn’t.

The Netherlands Opera’s production of William Tell, directed by Pierre Audi, has proved a daunting endeavor, captivating the audience through its colorful treatment of Rossini’s final opera. From the cast of characters on stage and the musicians of the orchestra to the sound, lighting, stage and costume departments, the roughly four-and-a-half-hour event couldn’t have been more stimulating.

In Pierre Audi’s new production of Handel’s Orlando, currently running at La Monnaie in Brussels (until 12 May, and thereafter available free online on their website for three weeks), the knight Orlando is portrayed as a modern-day fireman who in his fascination with fire has become an arsonist – “pyromane” as Audi explains in the programme.

Friedrich Nietzsche’s life was not that of an isolated contemplative but rather full of personal frustration, eventually ending in syphilitic madness. While his work has been often linked with music--most notably in his relationship with Wagner and Richard Strauss’s tone poem based on Also sprach Zarathustra--making his life into an opera may seem a dubious proposition.

This wasn't just another concert. It was Liebestod, a truly unique exploration of Berg's Lyric Suite. Berg's piece is a compelling work, whose mysteries were only revealed about twenty years ago when the composer's letters to his lover Hanna Fuchs-Robettin were released. Both were married, and the relationship was fraught with secrecy.