Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Ailyn Pérez

Good Butterflys are not that difficult to come by but great ones are very very rare. Ailyn Pérez fits the bill in this revival of Anthony Minghella’s classic staging. 

Benjamin Zander’s meticulous preparation, compelling concept and strong casting make for a shattering experience in the Boston Philharmonic’s performance. 

Returning to the first work he officially conducted as the Philadelphia Orchestra's Music Director, Yannick Nézet-Séguin offers a powerful study in contrasts, supported by a superb quartet of opera soloists.

The soprano's sumptuous Mimì is the main reason to catch the latest revival of Zeffirelli's La bohème at the Met. 

An excellent cast led by Clémentine Margaine livens up the first revival of Carrie Cracknell's all-American Carmen at the Metropolitan Opera. 

The Metropolitan Opera premieres Florencia en el Amazonas by Mexican composer Daniel Catán in an eye-catching, warm production by Mary Zimmerman. 

Michael Volle headlines a deluxe revival of Verdi's Falstaff in this revival of Robert Carsen's popular production. 

John Dexter's production, now among the longest-serving in the company's repertory, remains a marvel of simple, effective storytelling.

A delayed season opening at the Teatro di San Carlo, but a night of epic grand opera as Claus Guth and Juraj Valčuha deliver a weighty Don Carlo.

Richard Jones' production is revived again at Covent Garden, where Juan Diego Flórez and Ailyn Pérez lead a convincing cast. 

DSO music director Jader Bignamini leads his ensemble in the glory of Beethoven’s Ninth, prefaced by a recent work written as a companion piece to the symphony.

Ailyn Pérez’ role debut as Tatiana in Eugene Onegin at the Metropolitan Opera is a joy, with Piotr Beczała's Lensky the evening’s other standout. 

The Bayerische Staatsoper's new production of Falstaff makes the mistake of turning a comedy into a slapstick, but the fine ensemble have the last say as they stand in silence and defiance to face the empty auditorium.

One of Puccini's less renowned works returns to the Teatro San Carlo after over thirty years away.

Exceptional singing, an auspicious conducting debut and a staging that is both sophisticated and emotionally involving make this production an unequivocal winner.

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

A welcome revival at the Met of Robert Carsen's witty production of Verdi's final opera. 

Verdi's fifth opera can be considered a blueprint for Trovatore and deserves a more regular place in the repertoire, but it needs more sincere advocacy than Bechtolf is prepared to grant.

Bartlett Sher's production of Gounod's Romeo et Juliette returns to the Met. 

Chicago's new Faust is a quest for youth but also a reflection on insipiration, fabrication and manipulation. 

Ailyn Pérez draws every eye and ear to her in an easy-on-the-eye production that doesn't solve some of the work's inherent contradictions.

A gripping performance of one of opera’s masterpieces in Berlin. 

Santa Fe Opera presented Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette in Stephen Lawless’ mid 19th-century staging, a co-production with Barcelona's Liceu. Before the overture, General Director Charles MacKay came onstage to announce that Stephen Costello was ill and would be replaced by Joshua Guerrero, a graduate of the Los Angeles Opera Young Artist Program.

This production proves that even Mozart’s best-laid plans can be undone.

A new bel canto opera, a pro football team, and the future of American Opera--all in a day's work for Heggie, McNally, DiDonato, and von Stade.

This is a well-oiled operatic machine, with all of the cogs whirring. Act I's garret crackles and pops in a slick stream of gags both familiar and new.

Ailyn Pérez and Stephen Costello open San Diego Opera's season in a generous duo recital.

In 1984, I went to Covent Garden to see Andrei Serban's production of Turandot and was bewitched. Thirty years, fifteen revivals and a wealth of opera-going later, I was bewitched all over again by Nicola Luisotti's rendering of the score.

Ailyn Perez, Stephen Costello and Simon Keenlyside star in Verdi's La Traviata at the Deutsche Oper Berlin.

A glittering high society romance. A sordid tale of a prostitute born in the gutter and dying alone and painfully. A bel canto charmer, packed with glorious tunes. A scathing attack on Victorian sexual hypocrisy. Verdi's La Traviata is all of these things: find in it what you will.Richard Eyre's production for the Royal Opera is a hardy old soldier.

In 1971, the thirty year-old Placido Domingo made his Covent Garden début as Cavaradossi in Puccini's Tosca and in the intervening forty years, he has given two hundred and thirty performances in more than twenty-five roles for Royal Opera House audiences.

Some operagoers contend that Carmen, the fatalistic gypsy doomed to die, is unlikable. She antagonizes other women at the cigarette factory. She seduces men with abandon. She makes an inexperienced corporal of the guard fall for her, manipulates him into abandoning his military career for a life of smuggling, and then heartlessly turns him out like a pesky stray.

Opera Company of Philadelphia (OCP) reached into the Philadelphia community with its remake of Gounod’s Romeo and Juliet, the second of five shows in the 2010-11 season. In his OCP debut, Italian director Manfred Schweigkofler gave the company a chance to recast a Renaissance-era tale of two Italian families bearing ancient and deadly grudges as warring fashion houses in 21st century Verona.

Italienische Migration aus dem Süden in den wirtschaftlich attraktiveren Norden: starke Stimmen fokussieren auf archaische Züge und gesellschaftlichen Wandel in der Inszenierung von Francesco Micheli.

Amélie Niermeyers Inszenierung von Verdis Spätwerk fasziniert im unaufgeregt fokussierten Blick auf die Charaktere des Tragödienspiels.

La mise en scène de Claus Guth laisse encore une fois sceptique voire irrite, tandis que la direction musicale de Michele Mariotti déçoit. Aylin Pérez compose en revanche une Mimi touchante.

Manon fait son retour à Bastille dans un spectacle cohérent, avec une distribution réservant quelques belles surprises – mais une direction d'orchestre lorgnant un peu trop vers l'opéra...

Après un mois et demi d'annulations successives, l'Opéra de Paris a rouvert ses portes pour l'œuvre d'Offenbach, dans la célèbre mise en scène de Robert Carsen, toujours aussi ingénieuse.