Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Brenda Rae

Frederic Wake-Walker sticks to a vapid pop-parody that demeans the intellectual message of Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos.

A concert performance of Handel's not-quite-an-opera proves a hit on tour in New York. 

A revival of Richard Jones’ production of Handel’s emotionally probing opera. 

Top-notch singers and some sensitive direction almost make up for Laurent Pelly's frustrating Opera Philadelphia production. 

Barrie Kosky’s clever direction enlivens a Strauss rarity at the Bayerische Staatsoper but the minimalist stage setting sinks HMS Schweigsame Frau.

Static blocking and an uneven cast can't kill a Lucia di Lammermoor with a star this bright.

Oper Frankfurt's new production of Rigoletto focuses on the dark side of the tragedy with excellent singing from the two principals.

William Kentridge's Lulu for ENO is easier to admire than it is to love. But if you want to be challenged dramatically, this is the opera to do it.

Handel's sensual tragicomedy comes to dazzling life in Seattle Opera's first-ever staging of Semele, a new production directed by Tomer Zvulun.

Matrimony, divorce, Germany's next top model and superb voices - this Munich production promises an exciting evening.

The cast performs on flying, technicolor sofas in this colorful rendition of Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail. In an unusual revision of the text, we are guided through the opera by a narrator and backdrop artist.

Offenbach’s wrongfully neglected masterpiece has returned to us at last, thanks to the concerted efforts of Opera Rara, the Orchestra of the Age of the Enlightenment and Sir Mark Elder; and, above all, because of the tireless, lifelong devotion of one man: Jean-Christophe Keck.

Handel’s Radamisto has an improbable plot (although average by Baroque opera standards) which can make it difficult to stage. The most recent staging in London was the ENO production in 2010, which had a largely abstract setting.

London audiences had never seen anything quite like it. Fireworks, fountains and live sparrows were just a few of the special effects livening up the premiere of Handel's Rinaldo way back in 1711, prompting the Spectator's critic to compare it sniffily to a Punch and Judy show. Fast forward two hundred years, and you might wonder if there's been any progress.

To Glyndebourne, for the opening night of Handel's Rinaldo, the first of his operas to be staged in London in 1711, when he was just 26 years old.

El escenógrafo veneciano plantea el trasvase de la trama a un contexto contemporáneo, la playa masificada de nuestros días, pero olvida en su ejercicio de adaptación lo más fundamental: preservar un adecuado equilibrio entre las afectadas aspiraciones de los protagonistas y el desengaño hilarante en el que éstos se ven constantemente envueltos.

El Teatro Real renueva la producción de Damiano Michieletto de L'elisir d'amore y apuesta por el dinamismo con cantantes versátiles como actores.

Die Neuinszenierung von Bellinis I puritani wird dank der Sopranistin Brenda Rae zu einem unvergesslichen Belcanto-Erlebnis.

Mit Ariadne auf Naxos von Richard Strauss zeigt die Bayerische Staatsoper, dass auch eine Wiederaufnahme für musikalische Höhepunkte sorgen kann.

Kirill Petrenko donnait en version de concert au TCE l'opéra qu'il dirigera bientôt sur scène à Munich, avec le même cast. Il avait cependant une guest star de luxe, le Bacchus de Jonas Kaufmann. Une soirée où la musique était à la fête et où le théâtre était quand même présent.

Mercredi 26 août, dans l’Angelika-Kauffmann-Saal de Swarzenberg se poursuivait le Festival Schubertiade avec, à 16h, un liederabend par la jeune soprano Brenda Rae accompagnée de Wolfram Rieger au piano.

Rolando Villazón bricht nach einer schwachen Leistung seine Vorstellung ab und übergibt an Arturo Chacón-Cruz. Dass die Aufführung an der Münchener Staatsoper dennoch gelingt, liegt vor allem an der einfallsreichen Inszenierung.