Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Rosalind Coad

Annilese Miskimmon sets Janáček's powerful tale in rural Ireland, bringing this blistering drama of a close-knit rural community closer to home.

An excellent orchestral performance and fine singing from Yvonne Howard and Heather Shipp make Opera Holland Park's Norma well worth seeing, in spite of imperfections.

It is a truth, universally acknowledged, that a Handel opera in pursuit of a happy ending must have a few twists and turns, and Ariodante has everything you would expect.

The Secret Marriage has been a hit from its earliest days. At its 1792 première in Vienna, King Leopold II was so delighted by the performance that he ordered the whole company to repair to his mansion, be treated to a magnificent dinner, “and then play the entire opera through again, immediately”.

There was an element of scenic continuity between the lush greenery and positively balmy Holland Park evening surrounding us, and the staging of Opera Holland Park’s production of L’elisir d’amore: in the background, a large greenhouse full of the brightest sunflowers; in the foreground, sunflowers dotted about the stage, and the back ends of two lorries plastered with a large image of a field of

One of the consistent joys of seeing a performance by the Royal Academy of Music's opera school is that they bring in world class conductors. At last night's La vera costanza, the orchestra, conducted by Trevor Pinnock, was exceptional.

If you think that Hansel and Gretel is a gentle, happy piece of Christmas cheer, the first act of Lewis Reynolds's pub production for Open Door Opera might give you pause for thought. The children may be naughty, but they're genuinely starving, and the mother may be overbearingly harsh, but she is genuinely at her wits' end.

Last night at North London’s Gatehouse theatre saw the Merry Opera Company perform La Belle Hélène, Offenbach’s Trojan War parody of Grand Opera, translated/re-worked by Kit Hesketh-Harvey and enticingly re-labelled Troy Boy. Hesketh-Harvey is best known as half of the cabaret duo Kit and the Widow, but has also been a regular translator of opera for the ENO and others.