Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews

Festive Janáček and energetically fresh Sibelius from Rattle and the LSO, with impressive focus and intensity from Janine Jansen in Szymanowski's sensuous Violin Concerto no. 1.

There was a tingle to this concert, as if musicians and audience alike saw clearly for the first time what riches lie ahead.

This concert was inevitably the sum of far more than its parts, and not for nothing are the Monteverdi Choir and the Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantiquem, regarded as among the best in the world

Marlis Petersen's Alcina bloomed for a knockout “Ah! mio cor!” just in time for intermission.

Smoke and Mirrors in the title, but nothing unreal about the performances at the Southbank.

Guth's incisive staging of Strauss and Hofmannsthal's grandest opera proves a moving and detailed experience at its transfer to the reopened Staatsoper. 

Edward Dick directs a Tosca full of contemporary references with Opera North at Leeds Grand Theatre, Puccini's score conducted by Antony Hermus.

Pared-down forces of the ACO performed pared down masterpieces, in a brilliantly conceived programme which included works by Wagner, Strauss and Mozart.

WNO make a compelling case for Prokofiev's gargantuan War and Peace.

Mary Bevan’s bewitching soprano is the star of a glorious programme of music by Ravel and his contemporaries.

Husband and wife join together with the Ulster Orchestra in Ulster Hall, at the beginning of a year-long féile pairing the music of two twentieth-century giants of symphonic repertoire. 

If there's any way to characterise Trevino's approach to Mahler, it is that he is neither bashful nor shy. 

Smetana's Libuše makes a timely reappearance in Prague.

Tom Creed's take on Offenbach's opéra fantastique works best in the Olympia act in this new production in Dublin. 

In a failed mash-up, the Houston Symphony performed only the first movement (the three-minute “Prelude: Maestoso”) of Ives’ Fourth Symphony and continued attacca into the 80 minutes of Mahler's "Resurrection."

Philippe Jaroussky and Emőke Baráth's team-up with the Ensemble Artaserse proved nothing short of wonderful.

Works by Alban Berg and Gustav Mahler recently heralded this year’s concert season in Zurich, where Artist in Residence Janine Jansen gave a superb performance. 

It was Omer Meir Wellber’s turn to conduct the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in its first concert of the new season, a programme of music by Dvořák and Bartók which promised to be the perfect antidote to the Daily Grind.

Back for its third run at Dutch National Opera, with a satisfying cast, McBurney's staging wins new converts. 

Fresh energy and vibrant comedy marks the Trocks' return to the UK  

The Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, Alexander Liebreich and soloist Szymon Nehring serve up works by four Polish composers in celebration of the centenary of Poland regaining its national independence.

All three of these musicians are virtuosic soloists in their own right, but here they became far more than the sum of their parts – graceful, poised, and sensitive.

Attentive to the dynamics and tempi, Frang meshed her violin with the orchestra, naturally coming into the footlights or receding into an accompanying role when required. In effect, the performance had a feel of an improvisation.

The Lucerne Festival audience recently celebrated a superb solo performance by cellist Kian Soltani, the 2018 winner of the annual Credit Suisse Young Artist Award, who played with the Vienna Philharmonic.

Hamburg State Opera launches its new season with a visually overpowering but musically satisfying Così fan tutte.

This year’s NTR ZaterdagMatinee concert series in Amsterdam kicked off with a Boris Godunov that left nothing to be desired.

To reassure the sceptics, the break from tradition of Stijn Celis’ Your Passion is Pure Joy to Me, and Sharon Eyal’s and Gai Behar’s Half Life made for a great start to the Staatsballett Berlin’s new season.

Jonathan Cohen leads a sensitive performance by Arcangelo, with a line-up of five outstanding lyrical voices. 

Fine singing all round, sensitive continuo musicianship and dramatic action make for a thoroughly enjoyable Return of Ulysses by Monteverdi.

Baiba Skride gripped the audience in Sibelius's Violin Concerto in the opening concert of this year's Sibelius Festival in Lahti, along with some rarities by the composer.

Britten's profoundly pacifist work is given a calm reading by Peter Oundjian and the RSNO: soprano Erin Wall, the RSNO Junior Chorus and the wind players provide the high spots of the evening.

Antoine Tamestit takes a peripatetic approach to Byron's brooding hero, while Joyce DiDonato dies – twice – as Cleopatra and Dido. 

Rather than compiling a Top Ten of Baroque Hits, The Enchanted Island amounts to much more than a gallimaufry of choice gobbets, seasoned with French galenterie.

Fine performances from a confident cast brought some terrific singing as well as depth of characterisation in Stravinsky’s only full-length opera.

A marriage made in dance heaven

Not since Monty Python has there been more fun with a chorus of lumberjacks.

Along with Debussy and Ravel, this lunchtime programme also celebrated Lili Boulanger and young Slovenian composer Nina Šenk.

Another Bernstein concerto-in-all-but-name followed by Shostakovich, this time with the Boston Symphony flexing their muscles. 

Mahler for beginners? Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony Orchestra provide exemplary clarity and understanding of structure, but don't hit one in the chest in the way the Third can.

The Berliners' second concert comprised the core repertoire for which they are famous, Beethoven and Strauss. Under the dynamic baton of their incoming Principal, Kirill Petrenko, these warhorses were made fresh again.

Esa-Pekka Salonen brings the Baltic Sea Festival to an end in an eclectic, risk-taking programme of music by Biber, Beethoven and himself.

The Berlin Philharmonic gives a first half party before a dark Schmidt symphony. 

A conventional plot retains few of the elements of its Arabian Nights original, but the Academy's young pupils display vocal mastery in Milan.

A dance-marathon with the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch in Alan Lucien Øyen’s New Piece II for Tanz im August at the Volksbühne in Berlin.

Semyon Bychkov’s Prom appearances are always fascinating experiences and this was no different, with the BBC Symphony Orchestra on tremendous form. 

The Hong Kong Philharmonic opens its 45th season with Mozart, Stravinsky and Rachmaninov. 

For all its ambition, the première of Jesper Nordin’s Emerging from Currents and Waves at the Baltic Sea Festival consisted of little more than slick surfaces and displays of overload

The Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra present two works at the Berwaldhallen that both look to the past and future.

A quartet of superb soloists shine through an orchestral and choral performance of great precision to bring out Verdi’s powerful evocation of the terror of eternal damnation.

Vasily Petrenko and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra offer a stunning palette of orchestral colours in Elgar, Bell, Strauss, and Bartók.