Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Shane Lowrencev

David McVicar's dark and gothic Don Giovanni is revived in Sydney, with stand-out performances from Luca Micheletti as an unapologetic and dashing Don, and Eleanor Lyons as a magnificent Donna Anna

A beautiful 17th-century setting does nothing to dim the freshness and relevance of Sir David McVicar's production for Opera Australia.

A fine cast led by Maija Kovalevska conveys the timeless beauty and emotion of Puccini’s Parisian melodrama, but the 1930s Berlin setting remains an imperfectly realised transformation.

Aa fitting tribute to the 20th anniversary of State Opera of South Australia’s ongoing romance with the music of Richard Wagner.

One of the world’s great Carmens and John Bell’s smart direction is a winning combination for this Opera Australia production.

Splendid performances and a Nazi makeover turns Puccini's political tragedy into a visceral experience.

Director John Bell's chosen associations for his Carmen with Strindberg's Dance of Death and Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf underlined an emphasis upon the fated couple's joint knowledge that nothing they can do will turn the tsunami that's leading to their deaths.

The ever-popular La bohème returns in Gale Edwards' adaptation which features a change to the final months of the 1930s Weimar Republic as featured in the musical Cabaret.

David McVicar's Don Giovanni for Opera Australia takes its cue from the brutally grim opening of the opera, yet remains true to Mozart’s own description of a “jocular” work (dramma giocoso). 

I left the Sydney Opera House last night feeling vaguely dissatisfied, and yet a bit puzzled at my dissatisfaction. La Traviata is chock-full of Verdi’s most glorious music, and well though I know the score, I wasn’t feeling in the least jaded to begin with.

From the opening bars of the Overture of Opera Australia’s production of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro it was clear that this was going to be a production with a difference. As the orchestra began, the curtain raised to reveal a room, painted in brilliant white, with clothes rails at either end containing maids’ costumes.

In an opera of such popularity as Carmen by Georges Bizet, it wouldn’t be easy to please an audience likely to be inured to a variety of performances of arias such as Habanera and The Toreador’s Song. Yet Opera Australia made a thoughtfully constructed and well vindicated attempt.