Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Eberhard Friedrich

Kent Nagano and the forces of Staatsoper Hamburg launch their new season with a production of Shostakovich's very first opera in which the ears are beguiled but the eyes are not.

From stylised 16th-century dress to a 1970s sitcom ballet, Konwitschny's Staatsoper staging is full of brilliantly inventive touches, splendidly realised in this excellently sung revival. 

Hamburg's revival of a 2015 production is a musical success, but the director's concepts are sometimes too dense to tell a straightforward story.

Hamburg State Opera launches its new season with a visually overpowering but musically satisfying Così fan tutte.

Attila Jun's outstanding Hagen and Catherine Foster's sublime Brünnhilde light up the last episode of Frank Castorf's puzzling Ring.

Art installation of a biogas factory is the setting for a mostly undistinguished musical performance.

Christian Thielemann and his orchestra were the stars of an excellent performance of Wagner's Der fliegende Holländer. 

Klaus Florian Vogt's astounding portrayal of the swan knight continues to evolve and deepen in the once infamous "Rat" Lohengrin in Bayreuth in a evening of sheer brilliance and near perfection.

As the year of Wagner’s bicentennial approaches its end, De Nederlandse Opera concludes its latest revival of Pierre Audi’s Ring cycle with his 1998 production of Götterdämmerung.

Leider scheitern die guten Ideen des Regisseurs, Philipp Himmelmann, an der Umsetzung.