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Gautier Capuçon, Pierre Bleuse and the Orchestre du Festival Casals bring a devastating Shostakovich First Cello Concerto to Aix-en-Provence's Festival de Pâques. 

Beatrice Rana, Mikko Franck and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France bring a thrilling Tchaikovsky First Piano Concerto to the Festival de Pâques, even if their Shostakovich 10 is more of a beauty than a bully. 

Sir Simon Rattle and the LSO give an orchestral performance to remember, with a fine singing cast, but Simon McBurney's staging dials the bleakness to maximum too early.

Sir George Benjamin and Martin Crimp’s fourth opera shares the best qualities of their previous work but is an inspiring, breathtaking fable.

Brecht and Weill’s political satire could hardly be more relevant, but Thomas Ostermeier and Maxime Balcon's new production fails to do it justice.

The Flying Dutchman – or Le Vaisseau fantôme as it is known in French – makes a fleeting appearance at the Grand Théâtre de Provence in a rousing concert performance conducted by the dapper François-Xavier Roth. 

The French pianist thrills in Brahms, Schubert and Schubert clothed by Liszt in a stunning recital in Aix-en-Provence.

The Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai impresses in “bleeding chunks” from Wagner operas at the Festival de Pâques d'Aix-en-Provence.

The Festival d'Aix-en-Provence gives us a definitive performance of Wagner's opera – but for listening only.

A highly successful Falstaff at the Archevêché in Aix-en-Provence, for our greater pleasure: a true lesson in joy in a world where, we are told, all is but a joke.

A lovely recital of Schubert, Debussy and Beethoven by the Portuguese pianist in Aix’s Théâtre du Jeu de Paume.

All the music in their joyous concert was composed to delight the ear, and during a distressing pandemic there can be no higher calling.

Even outstanding soloists had to wait their turn in this Rolls-Royce performance in Aix-en-Provence.

In his 2016 opera Blank Out, Dutch composer Michel van der Aa has managed to create a new kind of operatic ‘reality’ that resonates powerfully with today’s Zeitgeist. Highly recommended.

Janowski's concept rang consistently true and the musicians did him proud.

What a day to hear an all-French programme, and with this fragile moment at its heart criticism feels futile, disrespectful even.

The musicians of MusicAeterna were impassioned, engaged and energised into a single force in this performance of Verdi's Requiem at the Aix Easter Festival.

A dashing, captivating concert, lacking only a few mood-changers to stimulate the audience’s eager receptors.

McBurney's brilliant stagecraft brings child-like wonderment to the most hardened adults; his interpretation and Raphaël Pichon's conducting exude Mozartian rightness.

With a stunningly inventive and modern-sounding score, strong acting performances and a staging full of theatrical illusion and coherent in spite of general weirdness, Aix's Fiery Angel impresses.

Lise Davidsen and Sabine Devieilhe produce soprano heaven in their contrasting vocal styles. Katie Mitchell’s staging feels disappointingly familiar.

Daniel Barenboim's absence may have confounded the all-Debussy programme but it left the Aix audience with a beautifully balanced recital.

A performance that sacrificed a degree of Gallic fragrance in its pursuit of precision.

Aimez-vous Brahms? For anyone who thought they didn’t, this sharp, disciplined band will have made converts.

Trottmann used profile, posture and facial expression to bring each song to life. 

Don't attempt to plough through the synopsis, but enjoy Cavalli's sexy score, persuasively performed in Jean Bellorini's modern staging. 

Jean-François Sivadier's pulsating new production propels The Don through his lusty adventures at a whirlwind pace. 

Simon McBurney's production of The Rake's Progress for Festival d'Aix-en-Provence begins with the equivalent of a blank page – a simple white paper box onto which he pours his inspiration.

Love may well be a rebellious bird, but that's as nothing to maverick director Dmitri Tcherniakov, whose twisted staging for Festival d'Aix reimagines Bizet's opera as a radical therapy session.

If I wrote that I loved Philippe Boesmans' Pinocchio, my nose may grow a little. The 81-year old composer in collaboration with Joël Pommerat, shifts the tale far away from any cutesy Disney fantasy, returning it to the harsh reality of Carlo Collodi's original fable.

A double bill of Tchaikovsky's Iolanta and Stravinsky's Perséphone fares strongly in Aix-en-Provence. 

A trip down memory lane sends our man in Aix into raptures as Robert Carsen's production of Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream comes home to Provence. 

An updating of Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail to the post-World War One era in a desert fails to inspire in Aix. 

Ana Sokolović Svabda (Marriage) leaves six singers in search of an opera on Aix's Théâtre du Jeu de Paume stage. 

The 67th Aix Festival got off to a hot, heady start with Katie Mitchell's witty and ingenious staging of Handel's 1735 sorcery opera Alcina. 

The choir of Les Arts Florissants is composed of some of today’s most dynamic singers, who can sing, act, and even appear in two places at the same time. Well, in a matter of speaking.

One of the most sophisticated offerings in the 2012 Festival d’Aix-en-Provence is a new production of Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s David et Jonathas.

The 2012 Festival d’Aix-en-Provence began its four-week feast of opera and music with Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro—and could there be better a way? Nothing can beat the sublime company of Mozart, Da Ponte and Beaumarchais on a summer evening in the open-air Théâtre de l'Archevêché.

Marc Minkowski a dirigé une version mémorable de l'ouvrage de Bizet, avec des Musiciens du Louvre au diapason et un quatuor de chanteurs de haut vol.

Dans des lieder de Gustav Mahler et Richard Strauss, les deux chanteurs se sont montrés complices, quitte à faire disparaître la part de tristesse et de mélancolie propre à cet univers poétique.

Idéalement accompagnée au piano par sa nièce Pantesilena Jaho, la soprano albanaise a de nouveau marqué les esprits dans un récital italien de toute beauté.

Le rare opéra de Charpentier bénéficie de l'incarnation proche de l'idéal d'Elsa Dreisig dans le rôle-titre, dans une mise en scène de Christof Loy qui joue habilement avec l'intrigue de cet ouvrage à la Zola.

L'adaptation de l'opéra de Britten par Ted Huffman et Oliver Leith est un bijou musical et théâtral, porté par une équipe d'artistes exceptionnels.

La mise en scène de Jetske Mijnssen déçoit, au contraire de la réalisation musicale proposée par une belle distribution réunie sous la direction intelligente de Sébastien Daucé.

La mise en scène de Robert Icke est une cruelle déception, pas compensée par les qualités de la distribution et de la direction musicale de Simon Rattle.

Prodigieux techniquement, inspiré poétiquement, fidèle aux multiples dimensions de la musique de Ravel, Bertrand Chamayou a livré une intégrale qui fera date.

Si Rudolf Buchbinder a déçu dans le Concerto pour piano n° 1 de Brahms, le chef principal du Luzerner Sinfonieorchester a mené une interprétation hédoniste singulière de la Symphonie « du Nouveau Monde » de Dvořák.

Si l'Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse a étalé sa somptueux pâte sonore, c'est bien la pianiste argentine qui a une nouvelle fois impressionné dans le Concerto pour piano n° 1 de Beethoven.

Des prises de rôles convaincantes (Pati et Deshayes), un duo de mezzos de choix (Crebassa et Desandre), Pichon et Pygmalion au meilleur de leur forme : retour sur un Tito top.

La soprano albanaise confirme qu'elle est l'une des meilleures Cio-Cio-San de l'histoire du rôle, accompagnée par un Orchestre de l'Opéra de Lyon en grande forme. La mise en scène, en revanche, déçoit.