Daniel Barenboim conducts much of Siegfried as an intimate chamber opera, resulting in an unexpected musical joy, with an excellent cast of singers headed by Michael Volle’s Wanderer.
The Staatsoper Berlin celebrate the arrival of Michael Volle, a splendid Wotan, aided by a strong ensemble of singers and Daniel Barenboim's leadership.
Daniel Barenboim led a performance of deliberate tempo with a great ensemble of singers. Guy Cassiers‘ production, while visually stunning at times, does little to enhance the performance.
Kosky’s production manages to maintain all hallmarks of a 16th-century fairy tale, while juxtaposing them with questions of deep human, political and artistic problems. Regietheater at its best.
Andreas Homoki’s new Zurich production capitalises on some quirky staging, but features superb voices in its principal roles and shows the best of the house’s joint choirs.
Gianandrea Noseda conducts the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Netherlands Radio Choir and an ideal team of soloists in a memorable performance of Britten's War Requiem.
Michael Volle and Klaus Florian Vogt demonstrate that they are indeed master singers in Munich, despite adversity, in a revival of David Bösch's contemporary production.
Guth's incisive staging of Strauss and Hofmannsthal's grandest opera proves a moving and detailed experience at its transfer to the reopened Staatsoper.
Henrik Nánási balances the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House to perfection, setting the stage for a memorable title role performance from Byström and a powerful Jochanaan from Michael Volle.
A mural depicting Etna erupting is the only hint of Sicily in Stefan Herheim’s opulent staging, returning to Covent Garden for the first time since the Royal Opera’s Verdi bicentenary celebrations in 2013.
Yannick Nézet-Séguin led an intriguing performance of Wagner's Flying Dutchman at the Met with a superb orchestra and an excellent ensemble of singers.
At the Concertgebouw, the three soloist headed by Christine Goerke’s Brünnhilde’s lift the performance of Act III of Die Walküre conducted by Valery Gergiev to the Valhalla of music.
Evelyn Herlitzius and Adrianne Pieczonka are unsinkable in the the French director's final production, conducted with impressive symphonic sweep by Daniel Barenboim.
The set is a stark, grubby nonentity. A central concave structure spits out each scene's requisites, flashing up like apparitions from the vortex of Wozzeck's mind.
Bach is music for the soul, and when excellent musicians are performing it, it cannot fail to be beautiful. Thanks to the considerable strengths of the many involved, there is really no better way to spend a weekend in Lent than lamenting through a Bach Passion in the Konzerthaus.
Both the music and the plot are heavily revised in Nunes' imagining of Rossini's final opera. But great performances and a coherent concept earned this unusual production a well-deserved standing ovation.
Brahms’ only song cycle, Die schöne Magelone, gets star treatment from baritone Michael Volle, pianist Helmut Deutsch and narrator Thomas Quasthoff at the Doelen in Rotterdam.
Few operas are as specific in time and place as Puccini's Tosca: the date is 17th June, 1800, shortly after the battle of Marengo (in which Napoleon Bonaparte wrested control of Northern Italy from Austria), while each of the three acts is located in a specific landmark in Rome: the church of Sant'Andrea della Valle, the Palazzo Farnese and the Castel Sant'Angelo.
Attendees of last night's Aida may have been concerned that they would be seeing a stand-in soprano, with the Ukranian Liudmyla Monastyrska making her Covent Garden debut. They needn't have worried. Monastyrska gave a world class performance with great vocal control and huge power.
Le Théâtre des Champs-Elysées propose une version concert d'Arabella, de Richard Strauss. Une soirée portée par une distribution de rêve dans laquelle se distingue Anja Harteros.
Mit Ton Koopman haben die Münchner Philharmoniker einen ausgewiesenen Experten für Alte Musik ans Pult geholt, um gemeinsam das Weihnachtsoratorium zu interpretieren.
Cette reprise de La Flûte dans la mise en scène de Robert Carsen nous dévoile un casting vocal à la hauteur des exigences de la partition, et nous démontre une fois de plus la capacité du metteur en scène à traduire avec poésie et grâce les sentiments les plus perfides qui bien souvent s'expriment dans les rapports les plus intenses entre les êtres.
Die Wiener Singakademie und die Wiener Symphoniker setzten den geistlichen Höhepunkt des diesjährigen OsterKlang Wien mit einer Aufführung von Bachs h-moll Messe im Wiener Konzerthaus.
