Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | English | Steven Humes

Stéphane Denève and the RCO gave a powerful, meticulously prepared performance of Honegger’s dramatic oratorio about Joan of Arc.

Emily Magee was in glowingly refulgent voice as the 'damsel in distress', Euryanthe, in this concert performance of Weber's rarity. 

What distinguishes Noseda's Tristan most of all is especial balance in the orchestra and a transparency of sound that reveals the inner-workings of the music.

At the basic level Tristan und Isolde is an opera of hormones, not happenings; fathoms deeper it explores human experience at a point where sense is dumb and flesh retires – as close to heaven and hell as it’s possible to go without first having to die.

Academy Award-winning actor Marion Cotillard's portrayal of Honegger's Joan of Arc was curious, exultant, yet unflinching. 

Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal began their collaboration on Die Frau ohne Schatten (The Woman Without a Shadow) with utopian ambitions. Unfortunately they weren’t the same ones. For Hofmannsthal, this would finally be the opera where his poetry would be illuminated by rather than buried under the music.