Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Charles Castronovo

As Zaharia inhabited her role, the opera became almost entirely about her, to the extent that one wanted to watch her every movement and hear her every syllable.

On her house debut, in Covent Garden's second cast of the year, Angel Blue is completely convincing as Verdi's doomed courtesan; Benjamin Bernheim is an unconventional but compelling Alfredo; Simone Piazzola a persuasive Germont père.

The Albanian soprano, who made a spectacular jump-in for her house debut in Richard Eyre's production in 2008, makes a splendid return. 

Fine musical performances meet Andrea Breth's dreary new production in a dramatically unsatisfying evening at the Staatsoper.

Bartlett Sher's production of Gounod's Romeo et Juliette returns to the Met. 

Stage director Ole Anders Tandberg casts Carmen as the leader of a gang of human organ dealers.

Issues that cropped up in the first run of Mitchell's production have been ironed out. In the hands of a strong cast, a chilling interpretation of Donizetti's masterpiece.

The musical experience was dominated by the imagery making spectators feel, at least at times, overwhelmed.

There's no faulting the execution, but the former Python's take on Berlioz's dramatic legend is worryingly inconsistent in tone. 

The finale was the dramatic and musical high of the night, when both Ana María Martínez and Mariusz Kwiecień let themselves cut loose, laying waste to the bare stage.

A warhorse on its own, Kálmán Nádasdy's 79-year-old production works surprisingly well, providing a nice evening's entertainment with a dedicated cast.

“Prepare to be shocked!” was the warning issued before this new Lucia di Lammermoor from Katie Mitchell at the Royal Opera House. Shocking? Yes, but in a good way. 

Stefano Poda’s deeply intellectual mis-en-scene immersed the bourgeois love affair between Marguerite and Faust in an abstract and transcendental tangle of philosophical, existential and liturgical motifs. However, an overflowing symbolism sounded sometimes academic, but the visual effects were suggestive if not properly enchanting.

Joyce DiDonato, Charles Castronovo and Ludovic Tézier rock the Berlin Philharmonie with Berlioz's "légende dramatique".

Rolando Villazon's new production of Puccini's La rondine for the Deutsche Oper Berlin charms with 1920s glamour.

If you let yourself be transported to director David Bösch’s strange world, you'll find an Elisir d'amore that is heartbreaking and uplifting by turns.

In La rondine’s climactic scene, when Magda explains to her young lover Ruggero why she believes she must leave him, Puccini sets their exchange to one of the most hackneyed of all musical formulas: the cycle of fifths.

How, I wonder, is it best for an opera company to treat a revival of a well-aired, well-liked, decent but not particularly radical production of a top ten opera? This was what the Royal Opera had to contend with in this season’s revival of David McVicar’s 2003 setting of Die Zauberflöte: many in the audience will have known every note of the opera, and several will have been thoroughly familiar wi

Don Giovanni is perhaps the most difficult of the Mozart–Da Ponte opera trilogy to stage. Not only is there the problem of how exactly the Don is to be consumed in flames at the end of its three-hour span, or the issue of how to make the statue of the Commendatore come to life.

The last opera of the Mozart/Da Ponte cycle – the second of the composer’s operas to be performed in this Mozart-dominated season at the Royal Opera House – Così fan tutte pivots on two pairs of young lovers whose affection is put to the test by an old ‘philosopher’, Don Alfonso. Women, the old man argues, are all the same: never constant in their love, never loyal to their men.

“Once Upon a Time…” No doubt, this has become one of the most familiar lines of childhood. Indeed, what childhood would be complete without fairy tales and fantastical stories of knights, princesses, dragons, and talking animals? Even into adulthood, fantasy and fairy tales continue to capture the imagination of many.

The final concert of the RSNO’s 2010-11 Usher Hall season was a journey from John Adams’ reflection on the tragedy of 11th September 2001 to Beethoven’s joyful statement of brotherhood in his Symphony No. 9. John Adams’ On the Transmigration of Souls was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic to mark the first anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

Retour de La Traviata à l'Opéra Bastille, dans la mise en scène de Benoît Jacquot. Aleksandra Kurzak et Jean-François Borras portent cette production du célèbre opéra de Verdi.

La toute nouvelle production de Carmen proposée au Théâtre du Capitole relève d’un subtil mélange d‘innovation et de tradition.

Une mise en scène portée par une fidélité au texte rafraîchissante, qui ne s’encombre heureusement jamais d’une inutile rigueur documentaire, et révèle la prometteuse Marina Rebeka.

Bei den Münchner Opernfestspielen begeistert Diana Damrau in einer musikalisch hochklassigen Interpretation von Lucia di Lammermoor und einer Inszenierung, die eher unspäktakulär bleibt.

Edita Gruberová stand nicht nur in der Rolle der Elisabetta I. auf der Bühne, sondern auch als Königin des Belcanto-Faches, das sie in ihrer beeindruckenden Karriere über Jahrzehnte regiert hat.

Le Festival de Radio France Montpellier Languedoc Roussillon présente une pépite méconnue des compositeurs Édouard Lalo et Arthur Coquard : La Jacquerie. Une prise de risque payante. 

Dirigé par Ulf Schirmer, le Chœur de la Radio Bavaroise, l’Orchestre de la Radio de Munich et les solistes ont donné une très belle soirée. Il est regrettable cependant que les longueurs du texte aient pu parfois distraire le spectateur.

Was haben eine betrogene Backpackerin, ein nackter Alter, ein prolliger Frauenheld und ein düsterer Containerbahnhof mit Mozarts Oper Don Giovanni gemeinsam? Nicht viel. Stefan Kimmigs Inszenierung an der Bayerischen Staatsoper ist sehr modern und hinterlässt den Zuschauer ratlos – im Gegensatz zum hervorragenden Ensemble.

L’Opéra de Paris propose un deuxième opéra de Bellini cette saison : I Capuleti e i Montecchi. Sous la baguette de Bruno Campanella et dans une mise en scène de Robert Carsen, Ekaterina Siurina (Giuletta) et Karine Deshayes (Romeo) incarnent le couple légendaire. Une production agréable sans être exceptionnelle.