Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Marcelo Álvarez

All three operas in Puccini's triptych are strongly cast in this revival. 

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

Amidst mixed vocal performances, competent orchestral playing and spectacular staging, Guanqun Yu took the limelight as a devout and sincere Liù.

Anna Netrebko scored an unmitigated success in her first Manon Lescaut at the Met, almost obliterating director Richard Eyre’s and designer Rob Howell’s misconceived production.

Despite the sombre staging, it’s the vocal fire that blazes in this impressive Trovatore in Paris.

Franco Zeffirelli's admired 1987 Turandot honored Giacomo Puccini's chinoiserie fantasy about a cold-hearted princess thawed by love, but musically lacked conviction.

The Met's Turandot remains a grand spectacle, worthy of the opera itself, with a cast rightly earnsing the wild ovation it received.

The Met's new production of Cav and Pag boasted strong musical performance, but its production, despite some interesting ideas, was not completely successful.

Andrea Chénier can seem more a series of scenes than a dramatic whole and it relies on exciting, charismatic luminaries to hold it together and keep the interest high. This revival of Nicolas Joël’s staging is a noble effort, but disappoints.

Pop culture baggage and a notorious story aside, La Gioconda at the Deutsche Oper amuses and intrigues.

Under the artistic and musical direction of Olivier Py and Philippe Jordan, Verdi’s opera has ignited a veritable storm of both fervent criticism and ardent defence.

OK, opera fans: anyone out there tired of being confronted with provocative modern interpretations of beloved operas? If so, this Tosca production is just what the doctor ordered.Set, costume and direction all work together in this classic 1958 production to create the impression of Puccini’s turn-of-the-century masterpiece as it was originally intended.

Verdi experts regularly name Un ballo in maschera to be one of his finest works. In spite of this, it’s never reached the heights of popularity of La Traviata or Rigoletto, so a new production by an acclaimed director for a major opera house is a notable event. We watched David Alden’s New York Ballo from the comfort of a London cinema under the Met’s Live in HD series.

If the painstaking recreation of Rome during the Napoleonic Wars is stripped away from the setting of Tosca. If choral numbers, sparing to begin with, are muted as distant drumbeats. If the title character is reinterpreted as a country girl with little artifice rather than a grand diva whose sheer confidence and sexuality prove irresistible to men.

Cantatrices en tête, un casting vocal prestigieux (Radvanovsky, Rachvelishvili, Alvarez, Lucic) assure le succès du célèbre opéra de Giuseppe Verdi. La mise en scène d'Alex Ollé déçoit.

Fallait-il condamner la simplicité de l’intrigue à tant de simplisme esthétique ? Retour sur Un bal masqué où l’expressivité, les nuances et l’ambiguïté seront à rechercher chez les interprètes. 

Très attaché à la représentation picturale, Pierre Audi signe ici une mise en scène relativement classique, efficace, laissant libre champs à l’attention portée aux voix plutôt qu’aux divers éléments qui composent les décors, très figuratifs.

La nouvelle production de l’Opéra Bastille marque par la qualité du plateau vocal et la beauté des costumes

À travers la nouvelle mise en scène de Pierre Audi, l'oeuvre de Puccini prend une dimension singulièrement symbolique. Le tout servi par une distribution remarquable.