Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | George Gagnidze

With Claus Guth directing and Simone Young on the podium, the Staatsoper Unter den Linden's new production of Mussorgsky's Khovanshchina proves that the past isn't really past. 

Film director Edoardo De Angelis sets his Tosca in a devastated, dystopiian suburb which mirrors and emphasises the opera's social degradation and immoral elements.

The combination of a strong, spirited cast and a first-rate orchestral performance led by Daniele Callegari rendered the opera a moving experience in spite of drab staging and latent, unexplored tensions.

Notwithstanding director Pippo Delbono's narcissistic excesses, his staging confirmed itself as effective and penetrating.

All three operas in Puccini's triptych are strongly cast in this revival. 

Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic unleash the darkness of Verdi’s late masterpiece Otello upon the picnickers at the Hollywood Bowl. 

You feel you ought not to approve of such directorial extravagance, but catch yourself being drawn into the grand pageant. 

David McVicar's uninspiring Cavalleria rusticana remains problematic, but a strong Pagliacci leaves the New York audience gasping. 

Semyon Bychkov turned in a magisterial account of Mussorgsky's rugged score, aided and abetted by some strong vocal performances.

The Metropolitan Opera’s now 29-year old production of Aida is still standing and still looking good. Gianni Quaranta’s gigantic sets – floor-to-sky-statuary, regal-looking staircases, a couple of horses, wise/exciting use of the stage elevator to change scenes (causing, unfortunately, a glitch the other night which delayed the final scene for a few minutes), costumes (by Dada Saligeri) mostly of

San Francisco Opera's Aida features exciting role debuts from Leah Crocetto and Brian Jagde and a visually striking production, but a lack of good direction keeps it from being great music drama.

Andrea Chénier returns to San Francisco Opera after a long absence, in Sir David McVicar's realistic production. 

The Met’s revival of David McVicar’s year-old take on the perennial Verismo twins strikes out emotionally in Cavalleria rusticana but scores high in Pagliacci. Working on the same set by Rae Smith, flanked by the forbidding stone walls of the town church, Cavalleria is dark, dark, dark – the very picture of a poor, unhappy Sicilian hill town.

Jonathan Miller may not be directing new productions of operas any more, but his productions are still being revived in many countries; in Tokyo’s New National Theatre, his Falstaff has just been revived.

Does it really matter where an opera is set? These days, this question seems to trail Rigoletto. 

Zeffirelli excess and Woody Allen wit: Los Angeles Opera's season opens with a double bill of Puccini's Gianni Schicchi and Leoncavallo's Pagliacci.

The Met's new production of Cav and Pag boasted strong musical performance, but its production, despite some interesting ideas, was not completely successful.

With elegant sets and superlative musicianship, Verdi came to life in the House where he is revered most. This musical feast will have us licking our lips for some time yet.

If director Luc Bondy has a muse, it’s the Georgian baritone George Gagnidze, blessed with a bulging eyes and a big, craggy voice. After growling and sneering his way through Scarpia in Bondy’s much-maligned Metropolitan Opera production of “Tosca,” Gagnidze is back to do the same to the title role of “Rigoletto” in Bondy’s new production at the Wiener Festwochen.

Read our review of Luc Bondy's production of Giacomo Puccini’s Tosca in its 2009 broadcast from the Met Opera in New York.

À l'Opéra Bastille, le retour de la mise en scène d'Andrei Serban produit un Otello mitigé, où l'étincelante Aleksandra Kurzak répond à un Roberto Alagna défaillant.

Retour de La Traviata à l'Opéra Bastille, dans la mise en scène de Benoît Jacquot. Aleksandra Kurzak et Jean-François Borras portent cette production du célèbre opéra de Verdi.

Zwei Verismo-Klassiker, die sich nach kurzfristigen Umbesetzungen auf unterschiedlichem Niveau präsentierten, wurden von Roberto Alagna in Höchstform zusammengehalten. 

Loin de toute la monumentalité qui a pu rendre indigestes les belles mélopées et accents verdiens, souvent cantonnées aux grandes pompes et à un logos lourdement orientaliste, cet opéra à l’écriture pourtant raffinée, et à la profondeur mésestimée, méritait une telle relecture.