Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews

With a combined age of 161 years, John Copley and Steuart Bedford certainly bring ample experience to Grange Festival's new production of Britten's Albert Herring. 

A superlative cast and perceptive staging make for a gripping revival of Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos at the Glyndebourne Festival.

Nietzsche's Midnight Song is the stillest piece of music in all Mahler, and Treviño’s poise and Larsson’s rich voice cast a powerful and profound spell.

The Staatsorchester Darmstadt under Will Humburg performed three mightly works for large orchestra to bring its season to a close: Kurtág's Stele, Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathustra and Stravinsky's Rite of Spring.

Ludovic Morlot closes his sixth Seattle Symphony season with a challenging program of Ligeti's Requiem and Mahler's Fifth that raises the stakes for musical 'redemption'. 

The American Pacifica Quartet was convincingly introduced to Aussie Nigel Westlake's Second Quartet for their Down Under tour; but revealed its essence in the theatre of Shostakovich.

At the opera’s great climaxes Suffolk’s famous wood-and-brick building could barely contain it.

Internationally acclaimed film director Wim Wenders and Daniel Barenboim give their debut with a rarely played opera by Georges Bizet.

Strong casting but intrusive direction makes this Fidelio a bizarrely intriguing experience, salvaged by some memorable singing. 

Outstanding solos, orchestral discipline and novelties in musical arrangement made for another quality symphonic experience from the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.

Wolf Trap Opera delivers high camp Rossini true to the composer.

Daniela Barcellona and Jessica Pratt lead a strong cast in an emotional and elegant performance of the first opera seria by Rossini under the expert baton of Roberto Abbado. 

Sublime orchestral playing and stellar soloists don't quite make up for a lacklustre performance by the Academy's choir in Monteverdi's moving work

A superlative performance of Carmen that was certainly among the most thrilling performances New Zealand Opera has put on in recent memory.

A crowd-pleaser is joined by a Szymanowski rarity to close the TSO's season. 

After all the speculation, Jonas Kaufmann made his role debut as Otello at The Royal Opera – an impressive, if not unqualified, success. 

Denis Kozhukhin provided flowing intensity in Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto while Yuri Temirkanov crafted a polished Shostakovich 5 with the Philharmonia.

Director Emma Dante revives Verdi's Macbeth for Turin's Teatro Regio, conducted by Gianandrea Noseda.

Half-arty, half-folky, this collaboration between bass-baritone Florian Boesch and the East Tyrolean ensemble Franui was an entertaining mixed bag.

The latent complexities of Nobuo Uematsu's video game music come to the fore with this orchestral makeover by the LSO. 

The opera can be summed up by a line sung by the Countess in Act 4: “You’re killing her with all this noise.”

A broken string near the beginning of the “Große Fuge” was emblematic of the intensity the Juilliard String Quartet gave to their performances of Beethoven and Bartók.

In Tarkovsky's venerable production, the Mariinsky orchestra and chorus are brilliant – but too brilliant for their soloists, including two replacement Borises for an indisposed Mikhail Petrenko.

Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera is rarely performed outside Russia. Sadly, I doubt that Daniel Kramer’s staging for Opera Vlaanderen will win it many new friends.

Rodion Shchedrin's opera mixes singing, choreography and storytelling to lend a potent sacred and mystic overlay to Nikolai Leskov's folk tale.

A visually stunning production with a fine cast to match. 

The programme ended with a sense of affirmation that shouted "that's how the Ravel quartet should go!"

Debussy’s opera of half-lights succeeds in taming the glare of the midsummer sun in Garsington’s new staging.

A thrilling finale to the 2017 Cardiff Singer of the World

Isabelle Patriot-Pieri's new production is a quirky mix of traditional and the opposite; Netrebko shows her star quality; Eyvasov impresses.

The Hungarian National Ballet brilliantly closes the season with the world premiere of Marianna Venekei’s version of Tennessee Williams’ classic A Streetcar Named Desire on music by László Dés.

A riotous double bill of Pergolesi at the Boston Early Music Festival.

Zubin Mehta brings a great deal of class to most things he conducts at La Scala, and here his bright account of Mozart's score was a joy. 

Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky Orchestra celebrate Stravinsky with a gala that closes with an outstanding Firebird; young talent blooms in A Soldier's Tale

In a state of almost child-like transfiguration and fulfilment, Strid's voice fully encompassed the extremes of the last scene.

Leonard Elschenbroich joined with the 12 ensemble for an evening dedicated to the Suite italienne, a stroll through time though with a focus on contemporary composers.

Tango infused contemporary dance sizzles on a hot summer evening. Sometimes tempestuous, sometimes tender; four couples oscillate between summer storms and wintry chills. Tangent, choreographed by Martin Lawrence opens a triple bill by the Richard Alston Dance Company at Sadlers Wells. He draws inspiration from Las Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas played on stage by pianist Jason Ridgway. 

Philip Glass' Eleventh Symphony, given its Turkish première at the Istanbul Music Festival, returns to his signature repetitive style. 

The Seattle Symphony's all-Strauss program included a refreshing take on the Four Last Songs with soprano Gun-Brit Barkman and a sonic tour de force in the rare Eine Alpensinfonie.

Handel's La Resurrezione, anchored the Boston Early Music Festival’s Thursday programs in a dramatic reading by many of the same forces performing Campra’s La Carnaval de Venise.

Johan Inger’s Carmen is back on stage in Madrid, seducing CND's audience once again.

Historically informed rarities from Rameau and Vinci aim to recreate the world of 18th-century opera-going in Paris. But a misaligned production distracts from this specialised experience.

Evgeni Bozhanov marks his Liverpool début with the RLPO under the watchful eye of conductor Marzena Diakun. 

Sex and violence bubbles beneath the surface in this near-faultless staging of Carmen. 

Nicolas Altstaedt and Alexander Lonquich give Beethoven’s cello sonatas a chance to breathe in a thoughtful and accomplished performance of all five at Wigmore Hall.

A new score by Melinda Wagner, concertante pieces for saxophone and orchestra with Branford Marsalis, and works of Bizet and Debussy comprised Susanna Mälkki’s CSO program, intriguing in its eclecticism.

The MSO and some suitably angelic singers deliver a remarkably bright, joyous interpretation of an already uplifting oratorio.

Brecht and Weill's tirade against Big Money is exceptionally well acted throughout; vocal and musical performances are more mixed.

Clad in sulphurous yellow with beaded jet shoulder pads she looked well able to vanquish Lohengrin in single combat with the swish of her cloak.

Two years ago, Russian soprano Ekaterina Bakanova was thrust into her Royal Opera debut, stepping in at short notice as Violetta. Her triumph was enough for the powers that be to offer her a run of five performances this month.