Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Boston

Benjamin Zander’s meticulous preparation, compelling concept and strong casting make for a shattering experience in the Boston Philharmonic’s performance. 

In celebration of the 125th anniversary of Symphony Hall, Andris Nelsons returns to the work that opened the venue on 15th October 1900.

David Angus leads a taut, spirited performance, but Steve Maler’s staging of Verdi's first Shakespearean opera raises many questions. 

Andris Nelsons celebrates Symphony Hall’s 125th anniversary with two works contemporaneous to the hall’s first season: Debussy’s Nocturnes and Mahler’s Symphony no. 4 (both premiered in 1901). 

Once again, the BEMF brings a Baroque opera back to life. Reinhard Keiser’s 1705 Octavia is exceptionally well sung, adroitly staged, designed and danced, with impeccable musicianship.

Late-career works by Lyadov, Bartók and Rachmaninov dominated the program, which featured Inon Barnatan as piano soloist.

Herbert Blomstedt returns to Symphony Hall to answer the question Schubert reportedly asked himself in his teens, “Who can do anything after Beethoven?”

The composer's magnum opus, unjustly neglected in English-speaking countries, receives magnificent treatment from Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, anchored by David Butt Philip and Christine Goerke.

Nelsons stresses refined dynamics, rhythmic drive, balance and contrast as he closes the Beethoven Festival in style. 

Andris Nelsons launches a Beethoven cycle with riveting performances of the first two symphonies. 

The Boston Symphony's final concert of 2024 is marked by appearance of the two conducting fellows from this summer’s Tanglewood Music Center, Ross Jamie Collins and Na’zir McFadden. 

Pappano leads a masterful program of protean compositions by Hannah Kendall, Strauss and Liszt, joined by Jean-Yves Thibaudet. 

A well thought-out, fearless, affirmation of hope which drew its listeners ever upwards into the realm of ecstasy.

Sensory overload? Color takes centre-stage in Scriabin's synaesthetic Poem of Fire and Anna Clyne's Color Field. 

Yunchan Lim joins Klaus Mäkelä and the Orchestre de Paris for a Rachmaninov Second Piano Concerto full of dynamic contrast. 

Conducting a reduced version of his own opera, Matthew Aucoin's Eurydice still packs a big punch. 

Before the planned program of Bartók and Haydn, the Boston Symphony Orchestra and conductor Karina Canellakis honor Seiji Ozawa with Bach's Air on a G String. 

Andris Nelsons brings his Shostakovich project to a close in Boston with an incandescent performance of Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. 

Seong-Jin Cho is the scampering left-hand soloist in Ravel's “Gershwin meets Boléro” concerto. 

Impeccable ensemble work in Dawn M Simmons' first foray into opera. 

A rare chance to see the first extant opera written by a woman, Francesca Caccini's La liberazione di Ruggiero dall’ isola d’ Alcina. 

Britten’s Violin Concerto could easily qualify as a Mount Everest for violinists, but Augustin Hadelich scaled it with deceptive ease.

A semi-staging of Golijov's “tone poem in voices” in Boston's Symphony Hall. 

Soula Parassidis gives a fierce vocal and dramatic performance astutely calibrated to the unusual venue.

Gautier Capuçon gives the US premiere of Thierry Escaich's second cello concerto, Les Chants de l’aube. 

Boston Lyric Opera decamps to a 1919 wharf shed for a production of Bartók's eerie two-hander, framed by four of Alma Mahler's songs. 

Thomas Adès conducts music from his own ballet score to The Dante Project and Stravinsky's Persephone. 

Lahav Shani brings a kinetic presence to the Boston Symphony podium in a concert featuring Prokofiev, Rachmaninov and Jean-Yves Thibaudet playing Saint-Saëns. 

Soloists Klaus Florian Vogt, Christian Gerhaher, Amber Wagner and Marina Prudenskaya star in Act 3 of Tannhäuser.

Virtuosity infused with a tension which became almost unbearable

Alan Gilbert turns the usual concert format on its head, ending his program with Dvořák’s Carnival Overture to follow a trio of works new to the orchestra. 

Dramatic, poignant and emotionally draining, this proves a benchmark performance of Mahler's Sixth Symphony.

Andris Nelsons makes no apologies for Shostakovich's Third Symphony, allowing it to blare, blaze, and bloviate as written.

Yuval Sharon’s production of La bohème turns the opera upside down... with captivating consequences.

Gil Rose conducts all three of Rachmaninov's operas in Boston, with impressive performances making a convincing case for at least two of them. 

Sir Antonio Pappano molds a dramatic yet intimate performance of Britten's great choral work, powerful and moving.

When a voice as potent as Christine Goerke’s has to push to be heard, you know there’s a problem.

The whole performance, which drew thematic parallels between Mozart and Bruckner, was a master class in eliciting more with less.

Omicron may have led to the cancellation of Janáček's choral epic, but Lukás Vondráček stepped in to perform Rachmaninov. 

Elim Chan and Igor Levit make successful Boston Symphony debuts performing Brahms' Second Piano Concerto. 

Soloist Jean-Yves Thibaudet spun a dazzling rendition of Liszt's Second Piano Concerto, which was followed by a limber reading of Beethoven's Fourth Symphony.

The first sounds heard in Symphony Hall in 2022 were those of a full orchestral blast introducing a world premiere by HK Gruber.

Widmann’s maze keeps the listener off balance, constantly surprising and tricking the ears as a labyrinth constantly surprises and tricks the eyes.

Thanks to an extraordinary ensemble effort by everyone involved, old friends arrived wearing expertly tailored new clothes inviting a closer look.

Inventive, engaging, and above all fun, this performance of Victor Wooten's virtuosic concerto for electric bass guitar invites repeat performances.

The conductor brought the score together by finding unexpected warmth in Sofia Gubaidulina's music and avoiding the melodramatic in his interpretation of Rachmaninov. 

Muscular and energetic yet subtle and mercurial, this was a tour-de-force performance from an inexhaustible dynamo of invention

The BSO selected two sumptuous works of Strauss to contrast the joyousness of Mozart’s Concerto for Two Pianos. 

The white hot intensity and conviction of the duet between Santuzza and Turiddu encapsulated the strengths of this performance.

Looking at its past, its present and its future, the Boston Symphony returns to Symphony Hall after the Covid hiatus.