Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | English | Alexander Polzin

A huge revolving grey monolith centre stage dominated a grey floor, grey props and men in grey costumes, all detracting from the gaiety Verdi envisaged as the essence of Falstaff.

Mauricio Sotelo's world première based on El Público, a fascinating surrealist play by Federico García Lorca, mixed flamenco and tragedy to achieve a great night of opera. 

Good versus evil, only evil wins. Wagner's Lohengrin fills the Madrid night with questions about what trust is and what it takes to maintain it.

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.