Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | John Matthew Myers

At Bard College, Christian Räth and Leonard Botstein make an excellent case for Strauss' neglected opera, Die ägyptische Helena. 

Excellent vocal acting from Thomas Hampson, Renée Fleming, Xiaomeng Zhang and a magnificent orchestral performance conducted by Kent Nagano can't make Valentina Carrasco's production fully grip.

Bedřich Smetana’s patriotic opera Dalibor is given a rare outing at Bard College, directed by Jean-Romain Vesperini and conducted by Leon Botstein. 

A chamber programme of Shostakovich’s private idioms and public masks

A memorable, impassioned performance of Arnold Schoenberg’s Gurre-Lieder in Disney Hall. 

A fully-staged performance of Wagner's Das Rheingold transforms Walt Disney Concert Hall to an opera house where the orchestra is the star. 

Fabio Biondi, making his New York Philharmonic debut, leads the New York Phil, the Handel and Haydn Society Chorus, and a quartet of soloists in a Messiah that emphasizes momentum.

Soloists John Matthew Myers and John David Smith proved an ideal pairing in Britten's monumental Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings.

In an interview I had with composer Gabriela Ortíz last week, she confided that it was The Threepenny Opera – that cynical reflection of Weimar-era Germany – that was at the forefront of her mind while composing her latest opera. Comparisons to that Jazz Age work would seem to invite the expectation that Ortíz’s opera would also be suffused with its bracing fusion of “high” and “low” art.

Le chef-d'œuvre de John Adams fait son entrée à Bastille par la grande porte, avec une mise en scène inspirée de Valentina Carrasco, une distribution exemplaire et une excellente direction musicale.