Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Weill

The first edition of the New Life Festival, dedicated to Jewish musicians who fled from or suffered under the National Socialist regime during the Second World War, uncovered some hidden gems.

Nationaltheater Mannheim's new production of Brecht and Weill's collaboration is a true company achievement and a thrilling evening of music and theatre.

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

Despite some very creditable orchestral playing, conductor Joshua Weilerstein never quite got anywhere with his programme of Bach, Weill and Brahms.

The BBC Symphony Orchestra brought together the music of two very different composers forced into American exile by the Third Reich.

John Storgårds and the BBC Philharmonic offer an intriguing autumnal programme of freezing delights. 

The centrepiece of Ballet Black’s Triple Bill at the Tramway in Glasgow is Storyville: set in New Orleans during the roaring twenties.

A revival of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's Die Dreigroschenoper at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées is a remainder of director and visual artist Robert Wilson's greatest achievements.

In the finale to Der Dreigroschenoper the sinister incantation of "Denn wovon lebt der Mensch?" ("For what does man live?") ran delightfully close to the bone in these plush surroundings

Barry Humphries’ Weimar Cabaret – a witty, urbane valentine to the musical culture of Germany in the 1920s and 30s, from the opera house to the concert hall to Berlin’s revues and cabarets.

HK Gruber's wit shines through this concert centred on Brecht and Weill's bitingly sarcastic songs from The Threepenny Opera; Håkan Hardenberger thrills with magical playing of trumpet and flugelhorn.

An engaging soloist, passionate conductor and fantastic orchestral playing made light work of a slightly lop-sided and overlong concert. 

Ballet Black presents a compelling programme in its first ever appearance at the Barbican

Emotionally-engaged performance of Weill's Apartheid Opera. 

Requiring trained opera singers to focus primarily on acting and asking actors to sing in a renowned opera house puts everyone out of their comfort zone, which is not necessarily a bad thing.

If ever there were a voice that required the big hall of the Musikverein, it would be that of Nina Stemme. 

This was raw Mahler at its most all-embracing. The musicians seemed to embrace the entire world. As an audience member made to leave the hall, Axelrod leant over the balustrade to shake his hand.

From its stunningly filmic opening to its faux-Golgotha finale, the Royal Opera House’s new production of Weill’s Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny demands our attention. 

She made cynics swoon and skeptics burst: Jessye Norman, along with pianist Mark Markham, serenaded eager listeners with love songs from the Great American Songbook and 20th-century France.

Friday’s concert served as an interesting showcase of music that, undeservedly, isn’t performed too often. Even though the performances were somewhat lacking, the quality of the music shone through.

Ute Lemper's barnstorming performance of songs from the Weimar Republic chimes perfectly with the Edinburgh Festival's barbed-wire-and-bluebell logo for 2014.

Deft programming, fine arrangements and playing from Mr McFall's Chamber and guest soprano Susan Hamilton.

Mahagonny surfaces for just the second time in Ireland, in a collaborative production resonating harshly with the country's recent economic history.

Opera Parallèle combines Kurt Weill's Mahagonny Songspiel and Francis Poulenc's Les Mamelles de Tirésias in a riotous opera-within-an-opera production.

Stéphane Rancourt gives the world première of John Casken's Apollinaire's Bird alongside brilliant Shostakovich and Weill. 

In conversation with Petroc Trelawny at the fourth of the Proms Chamber Music concerts, the 25-year-old Norwegian trumpeter Tine Ting Helseth casually dismissed her ten-piece brass ensemble tenThing’s all-female set-up as “just a gimmick”.

The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra really has the perfect Wagner sound. Their full, vibrant string tone and magnificent pealing brass were fully in evidence in a thrilling rendition of the concert version of the overture from Tannhäuser.

When one sees the word “Erotica” in connection with classical music, one is usually safe in assuming that it’s a misprint in the title of Beethoven’s Third Symphony.

The seldom-seen opera musical Lost in the Stars found prominence Friday night, enrapturing a full house at Glimmerglass Festival in New York, moving some of the actors themselves to tears, and stirring the audience to its feet for curtain call.

Imagine a small company of just seven dancers being served a smorgasbord of eclectic new works, dished up by a quartet of today’s best young British choreographers from different top-ranking British companies. Ballet Black has just had the good fortune to present this spring season’s fare to a full house capacity at the Linbury Theatre in Covent Garden.

Two of the world’s most sought-after opera singers giving Lieder recitals on the same night. The kind of painful choice which Viennese musical institutions and their chaotic schedules throw up all too regularly. I went for Nina Stemme over Jonas Kaufmann on the basis that she gives fewer solo recitals, despite harbouring reservations about how her big voice would fare in this repertoire.

If you are looking for a show for all the family this Christmas, look no further. Magical Night is a heart-warming production of dance-theatre in which one night a host of toys come to life. Along with two children, the lovable Chimpy the monkey, Sir Green Knight, baby Tumble Tot, Fire Flame and Mighty Robot have a great adventure.

Back in London after a sell-out US tour, English tenor Ian Bostridge CBE, with his wonderful pianist Julius Drake, proved his extraordinary range and versatility as a singer with a programme featuring music by Tippett, Britten, Bach, Haydn and Weill. This special concert had an extra resonance, as it marked Sir John Tusa’s last day as Chairman of the Wigmore Hall Trust.

A handful of times in operatic history, a composer has thrown away the rule book and produced a work which defies categorisation because it simply isn't like anything else in the repertoire. Kurt Weill's Die Dreigroschenoper is one such work: musically and dramatically, neither Weill himself or anyone else has ever written anything remotely similar.

Für einen fulminanten Abend im Rahmen der Styriarte in Graz sorgte Elisabeth Kulman bei der Präsentation ihres Soloprogrammes La femme, c’est moi.

Triste fin de saison à l'Opéra national de Montpellier où la double soirée lyrique Weill/Puccini n'a pas comblé les attentes. 

Dirigent John Axelrod, Klarinettist Sebastian Manz und die Hamburger Symphoniker präsentierten sich mit einem mitreißenden amerikanischen Konzertprogramm in Hamburg.