Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Sam Furness

Damiano Michieletto’s production of Janáček’s opera breaks a key tenet of high-concept opera: where it should reveal, it obfuscates. 

Jack Furness directs a terrific new Queen of Spades at Garsington – haunting and harrowing. 

Terrific music making with a light directorial touch brings mixed results to Monteverdi's 1643 masterpiece. 

A potent rendering of Alban Berg's tale of the traumatised and impoverished war veteran.

Director Tatjana Gürbaca and Czech conductor Tomáš Netopil deliver a “Romantic” Kátya Kabanová from the Grand Théâtre de Genève at Brno’s Janáček Festival.

Richard Jones' setting is superb in its bare minimalism, but he pays great attention to all the psychological nuances in Janáček's opera. 

The Philharmonia and Garsington Chorus deliver great performances, as do Natalia Tanasii and Fleur Barron as the two Larina sisters.

After Bach and Brett Dean, the LPO gave Stravinsky’s Pulcinella a ride in their musical Rolls-Royce... and it gleamed.

Barry goes for out-weirding Carroll at a fast and furious pace. There's plenty of fun and it's beautifully staged – but is that enough?

Benjamin Britten's final opera hasn't been staged by The Royal Opera in over 25 years, but his setting of Thomas Mann's Death in Venice receives a great new production by Sir David McVicar. 

To outwit death and attain immortality is a dream as old as human history. But isn’t it precisely the finite nature of life that makes it so precious?

A title role performance full of depth from Terfel and a barnstorming comic interlude from Tomlinson provide some great moments, but much of this Boris fails to rise above the ordinary.

After nearly two decades away from the Covent Garden stage, it was time Britten's Billy Budd came home, in a new production from Madrid by Deborah Warner. 

Osborn absolutely lives the part; he negotiated formidable heights, intricate passage work and the sheer volume of notes with style and clarity as well as colour and nuance. 

Tough, thrilling, ambitious and new: The Skating Rink is an exciting new major commission by Garsington, and its world première delivered on every level.

An affirmation of the importance of cultural values in the face of the abyss, or Richard Strauss fiddling while Europe burnt? Tim Albery's production leaves it to us to decide.

Ivor Bolton and David McVicar have teamed up to create an unapologetically Brittenian Gloriana, with Anna Caterina Antonacci at the top of a great cast

Strong casting but intrusive direction makes this Fidelio a bizarrely intriguing experience, salvaged by some memorable singing. 

Mozart's first stage work was written when he was just eleven years old; in this performance by Classical Opera, the composer's youthful writing and touches of humour are brought to life by a solid cast and lively conducting.

Billy Budd triumphs in Madrid thanks to an inspired orchestra, a solid cast and a dream team of stage magicians.

Despite the beautiful sensitivity of La Nuova Musica, coupled with some truly sublime singing, the silliness of Cavalli’s opera is sometimes overplayed in this semi-staged production; less is, sometimes, more.

Oliver Mears' impressively-cast farewell production in Belfast combines gripping drama and exuberant fun in a symbol-packed reading of Don Giovanni. 

Laughter is indeed the best medicine. As we try and make sense of the continuing political fallout post EU referendum, the CBSO offered the perfect prescription in the ample form of Verdi's Falstaff.

A very naughty translation and some fine singing make for a delightfully comic evening of Cesti's recently rediscovered Orontea at Wigmore Hall. 

At Garsington Opera, Richard Strauss' Intermezzo presents an utterly compelling picture of a mature marriage with its joys and trials; Mary Dunleavy brings it to life with a top class piece of acting.

Annilese Miskimmon sets Janáček's powerful tale in rural Ireland, bringing this blistering drama of a close-knit rural community closer to home.

Keri-Lynn Wilson produces an outstanding UK conducting debut in Richard Jones' faithful production of Puccini's Girl of the Golden West for ENO.

Garsington Opera takes a comedic approach to Beethoven's Fidelio. The result is amusing and musically strong, but lacking in both dynamic staging and emotional depth.

Under the title “Monteverdi Ballets”, Spitalfields Music Summer Festival presented a joint collaboration between the Early Opera Company and Avant Garde Dance. The challenge was to merge music and dance coming from two different artistic projects into a single unified product.

Celebrating its 25th anniversary season, British Youth Opera are once again exploring the 19th- and 20th-century lyric repertoire in staging their first ever production of Smetana’s comic opera The Bartered Bride alongside Judith Weir’s A Night at the Chinese Opera.

Dans le chef-d'œuvre de Janáček globalement bien servi par la distribution, la mise en scène de Tatjana Gürbaca fait le pari judicieux d’un jeu psychologique pur, malgré quelques limites.

À l'exception de la direction intéressante d'Antonino Fogliani à la tête de l'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, il n'y a pas grand-chose à saluer dans cette production clinquante, dénuée de la moindre cohérence artistique.

Le cinéaste hongrois Kornél Mundruczó propose une vision originale et puissamment dramatique du chef-d'œuvre de Janáček, portée par une Rachel Harnisch incandescente. 

Nouvelle production à l'Opéra de Flandre : le trop rare Cardillac de Hindemith, dans l'excellente mise en scène de Guy Joosten. Menée par le superbe Simon Neal, la distribution homogène contribue à la réussite de l'ouvrage.