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

Svoboda’s mirrors continue to provoke interesting considerations. Titled above the stage, they project a birds-eye-view of the action to the audience, making voyeurs of us all.

Davide Livermore's digital set for Opera Australia's new production of Aida ushers in a new type of staging to the Sydney Opera House, and backs up a stellar performance from Amber Wagner in the title role.

Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic unleash the darkness of Verdi’s late masterpiece Otello upon the picnickers at the Hollywood Bowl. 

Muti unlocks the immense dramatic potential of Verdi's revolutionary score, providing a wealth of colour and detail capable of conjuring mysterious Shakespearean worlds with no need for staging.

A trusty and convincing version of the masterpiece, with a cast of well-matched singers.

Sir Bryn Terfel’s Falstaff is still a cherishable rogue as he takes on the title role in Robert Carsen’s joyous staging at the Royal Opera. 

A spirited account of Verdi's early opera in its first professional UK staging, nowhere near as “ugly” as Verdi would have had us believe. 

José Cura shines as a designer but brings surprisingly little staging expertise to his latest directorial effort.

Daisy Evans' take on Verdi's iconic tale of love stymied by the cruelty of others is characteristically innovative and insightful, while also blessed with a remarkable central performance from Anna Patalong. 

Anna Netrebko shines opposite Plácido Domingo in Harry Kupfer's uncertain new production.

Bruno Ravella's fast-paced Falstaff for Garsington still has crucial space for pathos amid the comedy, with a notably subtle central performance from Henry Waddington.  

Grange Park Opera’s enjoyable new production of Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera looks a little homespun on stage, but has plenty of musical compensations.

Unlike the conucopia of duets Verdi wrote for soprano and baritone, his music for soprano and bass is much more limited and what exists is not exactly the acme of his output.

Musically, a rewarding Forza, but Homoki's staging is best forgotten.

Opera Holland Park starts its 2018 season with a bang (and a cough), offering a splendid new production of La traviata. Lauren Fagan is a sensational Violetta, but the production is a real company effort and achievement.

You feel you ought not to approve of such directorial extravagance, but catch yourself being drawn into the grand pageant. 

Marco Tullio Giordana's new production at the Maggio Musicale may be static, but musically there's much to enjoy in this rare slice of middle-period Verdi.

Anja Harteros takes a while to hit her stride in a Don Carlo that doesn't quite gel.

In a dated production by Hans Neuenfels, conductor Giacomo Sagripanti leads a musically successful Trovatore, where Angela Meade and Anita Rachvelishvili show their vocal brilliance.

In this Verdi's popular work we find a paroxysm of affections that is consonant with Matteo Beltrami's energetic conducting.

Francesca Zambello's hip-hop graffiti staging of Aida comes to Seattle. 

On their return to Sydney, the Australian World Orchestra under Riccardo Muti offer a subdued reading of Brahms’ Symphony no. 2 and a thrilling account of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony no. 4.

The acting was patchy and the singing ranged from serviceable to laudable in this dazzling new production at the Budapest Spring Festival.

The director presents the story clearly enough, but apart from that, there is not much going for this production.

The quality cast purred, but glorious roars are required to jolt audiences from placid enjoyment of Opera Australia’s gorgeous 24-year-old production of this Verdi classic.

Bracing and emotionally direct performances from the Australian Chamber Orchestra and Nicole Car, in a carefully-planned programme.

Odyssey Opera comes full circle closing its season “Trial By Fire“ with another opera rooted in Schiller’s Die Jungfrau von Orléans, Giovanna d’Arco. Verdi’s seventh opera is an uneven, retrograde effort which fails to mine further the rich vein he had struck in Ernani.

The role of Luisa, some of the daintier coloratura aside, fits Sonya Yoncheva like a glove. 

Nicola Raab puts Byron at the heart of Il corsaro in her new production for the Palau de les Arts, but doesn’t always know what to do with him.

Michael Volle makes his debut as Verdi's not-so-Fat Knight in Mario Martone's new production at the Staatsoper, with Daniel Barenboim conducting. 

The Royal Opera's revival of Phyllida Lloyd's production is marked by two outstanding Verdian singers and a superb rendering of the score from Pappano and the ROH Orchestra.

A (nearly) complete performance of the original French version of Don Carlos forms the centrepiece of Daniele Rustioni's Verdi Festival in Lyon. 

In Lyon, Daniele Rustioni drives through a pulsating reading of Macbeth, Ivo van Hove's imaginative setting not always fully backed by the vocal performances.

Despite the entertainment value and striking imagery, Kramer's production is a surprisingly dull affair, with curiously little chemistry between the lead couple.

In a disappointing revival of Hugo de Ana's clichéd and clumsy production, Liudmyla Monastyrska and Violeta Urmana confronted each other with their superb vocal techniques and diverging styles.

The Iván Fischer Opera Company makes a triumphant foray into Verdi's oeuvre.

A celebration of composer, soloist and orchestral excellence in an eclectic, if slightly eccentric, gala opening program to launch the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra's 2018 season.

The team of soloists, the chorus and the orchestra, under the baton of Philippe Auguin, powerfully conveyed the spectacular qualities of Verdi's Don Carlo.

A suggestive staging barely supported by the musical side

The remarkable performance of young soprano Christina Nilsson does not completely rescue a mixed-bag cast and a lack of Personenregie at the Stockholm Royal Opera.

Riccardo Muti brought a Verdian quality to Brahms’ Second Symphony, adding a certain Italian volatility and declamatory grandeur to the music.

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

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.  

A truly magnificent evening from Chailly and his Milanese orchestra.

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

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.

The biggest stigma associated with opera in Ireland is not that it is an elitist art form, but that it is not “Irish”, and that it doesn’t belong to Irish culture, more of a recent import, like pasta, or avocado.

The father-daughter exchanges between Dmitri Platanias's jester and Sofia Fomina's Gilda prove the highlights of an evening which doesn't always catch fire.

The Met Opera's concert performance of Verdi's Requiem was an emotional tribute to Dmitri Hvorostovsky.