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Visual symbolism and musical ambition in a production at the George Enescu International Festival. 

No hippos in tutus for The Dance of the Hours, but panto frolics abound in Stephen Madcalf's staging in the idyllic Theatre in the Woods. 

The Teatro dell'Opera opens its season with the world premiere of Giorgio Battistelli and Ian Burton's new Shakespearean work, under the baton of Daniele Gatti and the direction of Robert Carsen.

Verdi's most political of operas brilliantly highlights the juxtaposition of personal desires and political imperatives

The chance to watch their finely gauged interpretation unfold on the Royal Festival Hall platform was a privilege.

Dieter Dorn’s staging robbed Wagner’s final masterwork of magic and mystery while Simon Rattle set new speed records.

The London Philharmonic’s concert performance of Enescu’s Oedipe proves an extravagant but triumphant way to launch the orchestra’s new Royal Festival Hall season.

Vladimir Jurowski and the LPO gave a stunning performance of Enescu’s operatic masterpiece, despite a dramatically limp concert staging.

In the hands of director Hans Neuenfels, the Swiss première of Manfred Trojahn’s Orest was widely anticipated for its “splashes of gore and commensurate splatters of sound”.

Strong vocal and orchestral performances and a tour-de-force staging of Act II light up Grange Park's production of Verdi's political thriller of the dark days of the Spanish inquisition.

Handel's Tartar-Ottoman drama Tamerlano gets a majestically beautiful, if not wildly dramatic, outing at the Barbican with Il Pomo d'Oro. 

Jane Archibald and Ruxandra Donose provide a compelling prologue to Ariadne auf Naxos, while Karita Mattila's majestic performance lights up the opera seria second half.

The Philharmonia Orchestra celebrated its 70th birthday with a gala comprising Schumann’s Piano Concerto and Beethoven’s Choral Symphony, conducted by the orchestra's Honorary Conductor for Life, Christoph von Dohnányi

Paul Groves, Sir Willard White and Ruxandra Donose are the top-flight principals, with excellent support from the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus.

Stepping in for an indisposed Carmen Giannattasio, Romanian mezzo Ruxandra Donose opened (and closed) her Rosenblatt Recital with… Carmen.

As revivals go, Karita Mattila and Jane Archibald make the Royal Opera's Ariadne auf Naxos a must-see.

Handel's Tamerlano seduces the Versailles Opéra audience in a concert performance.

Carmen has always been in my head as a “pretty” opera: lovely tunes, colourful setting, exotically alluring gypsy brushing up against hunky bullfighter and handsome soldier - not exactly French Grand Opera, perhaps, but a far cry from gritty verismo.

Josep Pons strode purposefully onto the Barbican stage to conduct the BBC Symphony Orchestra in a performance of Haydn’s “Clock” Symphony. The first movement opened by way of an Adagio laden with a suitable sense of portent, the layers of writing for the strings being clearly articulated to bring this out.

It's the most spectacular entrance in opera: the giant stone statue bursts in to join Don Giovanni at the dinner table; a pair of sweeping downward octave swoops in D minor fills the audience (and the hapless Leporello) with terror at the rake's imminent descent into hell.OK, that was a spoiler, but then we all know the story: a production of Don Giovanni is all about how you tell it.