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Exceptional singing enlivens a flawed production, which takes liberties with the tone and tenor of Beethoven's sole opera.

Terfel's performance as the legendary sailor is stronger than ever and, one or two issues aside, this revival of Tim Albery's production is a compelling account of Wagner's first mature work. 

Dutch National Opera revives Pierre Audi's acclaimed Die Walküre for the very last time.

Yesterday, the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, where devotees of Richard Wagner converge annually from all over the world, opened its doors again for this year’s festival. Traditionally presented on the first evening, the new production for this season was Tannhäuser und der Sängerkrieg auf Wartburg (to use the opera’s full name), presented to a capacity audience.

Orchestra and chorus reach great Wagnerian heights in this new production by Christof Loy, a study of an artist in revolt against hypocritical sexual mores.

The chance to watch their finely gauged interpretation unfold on the Royal Festival Hall platform was a privilege.

A standout performance from Stephen Milling complements all-round excellence of cast to provide a satisfying end to the Covent Garden Ring.

Chung's mastery of orchestral colour and texture came into its own, the brooding introduction to Act 2 making for a harrowingly apocalyptic representation of tyranny.

A passionless staging of Wagner's masterpiece throws cold water on Barenboim's fiery conducting at the Staatsoper.

With a plethora of theatre seats, stools and benches it was as if Willy Decker and Wolfgang Gussman had been elected ‘Chair-men of the bored”.

Hartmann's staging takes a bizarre twist in the end since so far the staging had followed the naïve story very faithfully without any weird implications.

Alan Gilbert reaches a pinnacle at the end of his tenure at the New York Philarmonic.

Holten's masonic lodge setting of Meistersinger gets a lot right but is occasionally uneven; Terfel and Hughes Jones are constantly good to listen to.

Deutsche Oper Berlin's revival of Parsifal features a brilliant musical performances to override the production's focus on the dark side of religion.

Tim Albery's 2010 production of Tannhäuser, receiving its first revival at Covent Garden, begins with a stylish opening 20 minutes, but thereafter things become rather bland. 

Sir Simon and Berln Philharmonic triumphed in a thought-provoking production of Tristan und Isolde with a fine ensemble of singers.

Klaus Florian Vogt’s Florestan redeems an otherwise disappointing Fidelio in Otto Schenk's timeless production.

Accompanied by an ebulliant Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, a fine Danish cast popped open the comedic bubbly at a concert performance of Nielsen’s Maskarade at the Concertgebouw. 

At the end, there was a profusion of boos and applause for the creative team: Castorf and co had given us a Ring cycle that was by turns infuriatingly indulgent, interestingly provocative, visually beautiful, puzzling and rewarding.

A great love story as well as a cultural and musical shock as it has been from the beginning, this performance of Tristan und Isolde in Naples was led by an inspired Zubin Metha.

Earnest singing and dramatic insight made Das Rheingold with the Hong Kong Philharmonic a remarkable evening. 

Tristan und Isolde is notoriously difficult to bring off in the theatre, but under Daniel Barenboim's direction, Waltraud Meier, Peter Seiffert and an outstanding cast give a profoundly moving performance of Harry Kupfer's production at the Berlin Staatsoper.

A Beethoven cycle last year, The Ring this year: what will Daniel Barenboim bring to the 2014 Proms? Perhaps, given the recent success of extracts both at the Proms and at Lincoln Center Festival, the smart money is on Karlheinz Stockhausen’s 29-hour, seven-opera cycle Licht. Then again, perhaps not.

Think of all the adjectives typically used to report on the best of female Wagner singing; add lyrical phrasing and imagine the absence of any shrillness, and you have come as close as possible to a description of the perfection that Nina Stemme achieved in her first Isolde for the Wiener Staatsoper.

Beethoven took over nine years to write and edit Fidelio, his only opera. It tells the story of Leonore, whose husband Florestan is being illegally held in prison. She disguises herself as a man, Fidelio, and gets a job in the prison in an attempt to save him.

As The Flying Dutchman nears its close, the crew of Daland's ship are celebrating their safe homecoming and yelling at the Dutchman's unseen crew to join them. To their horror, they realise that they have indeed woken the dead: the Dutchman's crew are ghosts who have wandered the oceans for centuries: the storms cannot burst their sails for they are protected by Satan.

Capitaneada por Gustavo Dudamel, esta es una representación de lujo que ningún aficionado debería perderse y una perfecta oportunidad para crear afición.

In einer packenden konzertanten Aufführung war Wagners Rheingold unter Yannick Nézet-Séguin vom Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra außergewöhnlich expressiv und mit exzellenten Sängerdarstellern in Baden-Baden zu erleben.

Esperábamos una culminación de esta Tetralogía que continuara con su trayectoria ascendente de calidad musical, algo que desgraciadamente se ha quedado lejos de la realidad.

Un Verdi de toute beauté ! Avec Daniele Callegari à la baguette et Robert Carsen à la mise en scène.