Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Dennis Petersen

Dead Man Walking is currently the most frequently performed contemporary American opera. Joel Ivany's staging, first mounted in Vancouver, opened recently at Minnesota Opera just days after the opera's Spanish première in Madrid. 

Highly idiomatic and effective singing by Greer Grimsley, Denyce Graves and other cast members, coupled with inventive stagecraft wizardry, make the Minnesota Opera's first-ever Rheingold a memorable production.

If you're wondering what it's like to be Kát’a Kabanová, Garry Hynes' set at Spoleto says it all.

Seattle Opera’s Siegfried takes place in familiar territory. Mime lives in the part of the forest where the gods roamed in Das Rheingold, and the dragon has made its lair where Hunding and Siegmund fought in Die Walküre (there’s even a bloodstain on the rock, which the Wanderer touches regretfully).

Some Ring cycles are based on ideological concepts; Seattle Opera’s current Ring cycle is based on a place. That place is the Pacific Northwest of the United States, home to such extraordinary natural beauty that stage director Stephen Wadsworth has deemed it fit for the gods.