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Jake Heggie's spectacular vocal writing combine with Terence McNally's perfectly paced libretto to provide intense music drama which forces you to confront darkness.

Despite a great cast, the Metropolitan Opera's revival of Semiramide bores with tacky costumes and no direction.

With many costume changes, notably into a Sun-King with very prominent phalic sunburst, Houtzeel held centre-stage in the title role.

Boston's Odyssey Opera performs a rarity: Arthur Honegger's Jeanne d’Arc au bûcher, a dramatic oratorio inspired by medieval mystery plays. 

Written on Skin is a cold but effective opera full of musical and dramatic energy. Opera Philadelphia's new staging and talented young cast do it justice.

With so little of worth happening onstage, this performance requires a unanimously strong set of performances from the main cast.

Interesting ideas and a brilliant orchestral performance aren't enough to overcome a visually dull staging, predictable choreography and a lack of chemistry between the protagonists.

Weill's neglected "American Opera" opens in Madrid with a refurbished production by John Fulljames and a strong cast led by Patricia Racette.

Cal McCrystal goes long on the ham and keeps the gags flowing in a visually stunning production that will delight G&S lovers.

A passionless staging of Wagner's masterpiece throws cold water on Barenboim's fiery conducting at the Staatsoper.

Tommaso Traetta’s Antigona is given a powerful staging, although not all the voices proved big enough for its mythical subject.

In a sensational Hungarian double bill of taut psychological drama at Müpa, Péter Eötvös' Senza sangue proves a thrilling partner to Bartok’s Bluebeard’s Castle.

Kevin Puts effectively shapes the time-traveling structure with distinctive sound worlds as thirty dramatic vignettes unfold across a little more than an hour and a half.

L’Opéra de Lyon’s new production of Respighi’s La bella dormente nel bosco was an operatic pastiche with fairy tale fantasy and foxtrots thrown in for good measure.   

Carlo Rizzi conducts WNO's Tosca revival in Cardiff.

If Chung is sometimes hailed as the greatest living conductor of Verdi, here was a performance to support that claim.

Glass' meditation on Gandhi's principles of non-violent resistance is powerfully treated in Phelim McDermott's virtuosic 2007 staging.

Virtuoso modern stagecraft and a fine cast combine in a very enjoyable, present-day Rake’s Progress.

The Met’s production of Wagner’s Parsifal is a harrowing affair, entrancing in its refusal to charm. 

Dénise Beck shines as the Princess Sidi in the Royal Danish Opera's production of Friedrich Kuhlau's Lulu, receiving its first performances in 180 years.

In Jetske Mijnssen’s new production of Idomeneo, all order of human entanglements, sorrows and pain run rampant.

With a plethora of theatre seats, stools and benches it was as if Willy Decker and Wolfgang Gussman had been elected ‘Chair-men of the bored”.

Plasson shows all his experience; Lavaudant surprises and delights with his direction; a strong cast sing their hearts out. Who can ask for more?

Alex Otterburn as East End Eddy gives a towering performance in Scottish Opera’s revival of its Edinburgh Festival production of Mark Anthony Turnage’s Greek.

If you had received an invitation to a masked ball at which there turned out to be no masks and no dancing, it's understandable you'd feel disappointed. 

When the entire plot is triggered by a freak accident, you can't blame director David Pountney for making Fate itself one of the key characters.  

Damiano Michieletto's new production in Venice sets the operetta in the 1950s. 

Tradition and modernity are a mismatch in this uneven production of Mozart’s comic masterpiece.

The third installment of Semperoper Dresden’s Ring des Nibelungen cycle ups the ante with an outstanding ensemble performance.

Handel’s opera Orlando is famous for the great mad scene at the end of Act 2. Specifically written for the celebrated castrato Senesino, it’s an emotionally powerful ten-minute monologue.

Christian Thielemann and the Staatskapelle Dresden orchestra are let down by sub-optimal singers in Willy Deckers chair-laden production of  Die Walküre. 

Wagner demands vocal resilience from the large cast of singers in Das Rheingold, but Willy Decker wants strong thigh muscles as well.

Jake Heggie's story of redemption captivated the Teatro Real audience thanks to a solid cast and an effective production

Deutsche Oper Berlin's Salome was a mixed blessing: a magnificent Catherine Naglestad as the heroine, with good ensemble of singers and orchestra, but a thoughtful but far-fetched psychological interpretation.

Robert Hayward was unafraid to 'go ugly' when need be in Jurowski's symphonically executed concert performance. 

Whether it’s half an opera, three quarters an operetta, or a musical and a half, Francesca Zambello’s team put together a production that was easy to fall in love with. 

Dead Man Walking is currently the most frequently performed contemporary American opera. Joel Ivany's staging, first mounted in Vancouver, opened recently at Minnesota Opera just days after the opera's Spanish première in Madrid. 

Camilla Nylund’s rich, ample voice bloomed in the glorious setting of the sonnet, cosseted by burnished horn playing, in Strauss' unsurpassed operatic farewell to the soprano voice.

At its 2015 inauguration at the Royal Opera House, a controversial rape scene in Act 3 drew outrage from the audience and critics alike. Now the Teatro Massimo is presenting the production once again.

Towering above all the other meritorious singers in this performance, was the phenomenal Georgian mezzo-soprano Anita Rachvelishvili 

The final instalment of the Hong Kong Philharmonic's Ring cycle merits the orchestra joining the international big league. 

The Temple of Opera has opened its doors to operetta. For the first time the Teatro alla Scala is staging Johann Strauss' Die Fledermaus.

The Spanish director offers a controversial angle but tones it down to focus on dark psychology rather than spectacle in his staging of Schrecker's hothouse opera.

In a score that can be a Technicolor wallow, Jurowski’s sure sense of dramatic pulse and balance, encompassed the brash dance rhythms, religious grandeur, vivid tone painting and the extremes of dissonance.

The gamble of Dealing with Death pays off for Holst’s Sāvitri but is less certain for Ullmann’s Emperor of Atlantis.  Opera students at RCS capture the mix of satire, surrealism and anarchy perfectly

Stage director Ole Anders Tandberg casts Carmen as the leader of a gang of human organ dealers.

Vick enjoys working with young singers, and in with the young second cast he is spoiled.

The first staging of Bellini's Norma in Oslo in over a century is unfortunately hampered by an irritating production, yet some glorious singing does much to rescue the show.

Christopher Alden’s production of Verdi’s Rigoletto returned to Toronto tighter, more focussed and with fewer dramatic incongruities. Add to this that every aspect of the music making was top notch and it made for a fine evening at the theatre.

Oper Köln’s Orpheus in the Underworld proved age accessibility must not sacrifice humour and musical integrity. The tight ensemble piece was superbly acted and well-sung throughout.