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

A thrilling finale to the 2017 Cardiff Singer of the World

Lord Sidney's contemplation of the insanity of the world seems to be the impetus for this delirious production. So endless is its stream of gags that to attend this show is to be left feeling exhausted.

It's typical that in the last concert in a series that has lasted seventeen years, we had a recital from a talented young singer with a growing reputation, a Rosenblatt classic.

Bartoli shines in another Rossini role supported by an uneven cast.

This was less a concert of two halves than one of two tenors: able to dramatise the music of Puccini and Verdi far more effectively than his earlier Mozart, Flórez came alive.

All roads lead to Rome. Last night however, the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia brought the Eternal City vividly to London.

La gazza ladra celebrates its 200th anniversary with a new production at La Scala, an earthbound effort from director Gabriele Salvatores, but it was Riccardo Chailly who drew the wrath of sections of the Milanese audience. 

Jennifer France and Nicholas Lester are a compelling double act in Rossini’s sparkling comedy La scala di seta from Scottish Opera in Concert.

Mark Lamos' staging is a riot of colour and movement; George Souglides gives us a masterclass in costumery; fine Italian singing illuminates this Norwegian première for Rossini's madcap Il turco in Italia.

In Livermore's staging the scheme becomes meta-cinematographic: the poet Prosdocimus here has Marcello Mastroianni's features in Fellini's film 8 ½.

Tara Erraught offered a programme that combined well-known arias with obscure German Lieder, showing off a voice strong in technique and colour that left the audience wanting more.

Valery Gergiev's late withdrawal meant Marios Papadopoulos, music director of the Oxford Philharmonic, stepped into the Russian's shoes. 

The Rossini masterpiece is brought to life by an inspired conductor and four first-class singers in a new, modern production by David Alden.

The chemistry between Muti and the CSO continues to sizzle in a Rossini overture, a Mendelssohn symphony, and a Beethoven piano concerto with Yefim Bronfman.

La Cenerentola is the final component of Opera North's fairytale season, with every voice and every character getting a chance to revel in Rossini's intricate ornamentation.

Exuberant celebration of La Cenerentola's 200th anniversary by Cecila Bartoli and her colleagues at the Concertgebouw.

On the 200th anniversary of La cenerentola's première, Bartoli & co tour Europe and bring Rossini's sparkle to the Dortmund Konzerthaus.

With his first foray into Rossini, Norwegian director Stefan Herheim turns La Cenerentola into a brilliantly funny spectacle, filled with thought provoking humour and outstanding singing.

Migros Kulturprozent Classics recently treated the Zurich audience to a triple bill of distant musical cousins: Rossini, Wagner and Rachmaninov.

New National Theatre Tokyo hosts a stylish and humorous Il barbiere di Siviglia. 

Suggesting that Otello was a migrant, like modern refugees, was not a great staging idea for a production which could count on an high-rate vocal cast.

A lively William Tell Overture from Pappano and lyrical Bruch from LSO leader, Roman Simović, preceded a majestic performance of Strauss' Alpine Symphony. 

Fabio Luisi conducts a solidly cast Guillaume Tell with panache, Rossini's final opera returning to the Metropolitan Opera after a long absence. 

Characteristic attention made high-precision textures glisten even in this difficult acoustic. No tears required. On the basis of this performance, Mexican youth music is in fine shape.

Eleonora Buratto showed a voice with plenty of style and character, but her recital was not always inspired. 

Before the beginning of each opera, an announcement is made reminding the audience not to film, photograph, tweet, post, google, snapchat... Komische Oper Berlin premieres a hilarious Barber of Seville where the singers do nothing but just that.

An exhilarating evening of rarities and novelty from Anna Bonitatibus.

A winning ensemble of singers led by James Levine makes the revival of Rossini’s early opera a success.

In a staging new to Florence, the action is often merely a set of friezes, singers immobilised on a pair of moving plinths. 

Alek Shrader's Wigmore Hall debut was thrilling, touching, charming and mysterious.

The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, its Music Director Charles Dutoit, Principal Guest Conductor Pinchas Zukerman and Martha Argerich party in style with Rossini, Schumann, Bruch and Stravinsky.

It’s curious to program an opening night with second-fiddle work; at least I thought so until this Strauss.

To open the new season, the Seattle Symphony and Ludovic Morlot were joined by star mezzo Joyce DiDonato, whose performance sent listeners over the top and over the rainbow.

For the latest revival of Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier's candy-striped production, the Royal Opera serves up the operatic equivalent of stodgy semolina.

Enjoy this light and elegant opera buffa based on the play by Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais before year's end, as 2016 marks the 200th anniversary year of its premiere.

The 2016 Proms come to a riotous close at the Royal Albert Hall.

Complete performances of Semiramide are as rare as hen's teeth. Opera Rara came close in a terrific concert performance in the Hanging Gardens of Kensington.

French-Canadian pianist Louis Lortie brought Italy to London in a lunchtime recital which perfectly captured the vivid sights, sounds and colours of Naples and Venice.

The ultimate musical misnomer, Rossini's last major work is beautifully sung in the wonderful surroundings of the Chapel of the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich.

The Incontri in terra di Siena festival's incoming artistic director, Alessio Bax, goes down a storm with Beethoven's "Emperor".

Glyndebourne's annual performance at the Proms proves dramatically untraditional but musically solid.

Opera Holland Park's traditionally staged Cenerentola has plenty of sparkle and a fine cast of talented singers.

Italian swagger and French farce combining to raise some much needed laughs despite the restrictions of a concert performance at Cadogan Hall.

The away leg of Rossini's “Italian girl - Turkish guy” fixture makes for a thoroughly enjoyable evening at Garsington, without ever quite bursting into flame.

Annabel Arden's new production, although decently sung and visually striking, is seriously under-directed, allowing forced acting to blunt the humour.

Stellar singing and excellent acting makes this a brilliantly satisfying and amusing 1970s take on Rossini's classic The Barber of Seville. 

Javier Camarena gave a thrilling performance in the penultimate Rosenblatt Recital.

Joyce DiDonato enchants the public of the Amsterdam Concertgebouw with a program of art songs and arias inspired by Venice.

Flórez's recital showed exactly why singers should steer clear of technological assistance. 

That Rossini was a wag. The master of the bon mot, you suspect he probably had his tongue firmly in his cheek when he entitled his 1864 choral work the Petite Messe Solenelle.