Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Jens Larsen

With a brand new production by Barrie Kosky, Komische Oper Berlin's first venture into the Sondheim repertoire mostly falls flat.

A dearth of nuance affects this new production of Verdi's late masterpiece in Berlin, set in Sir John's gourmet kitchen. 

Komische Oper Berlin presents Leoš Janáček's masterpiece as a tight-knit psychodrama in a new production conducted by Giedrė Šlekytė.

Celebrating his tenth and last season at the head of Komische Oper, Kosky treats himself to a revival of his 2017 production, which shows no signs of aging.

Leigh Melrose appears in a strong new Œdipe directed by Evgeny Titov to open the 2021-22 season at the Komische Oper. 

The Komische Oper's new, socially-distanced Offenbach staging shows plenty of glitzy defiance in its brief appearance before Germany's latest lockdown. 

Sophisticated interpretation of The Bassarids by Hans Werner Henze at the Komische Oper Berlin

At the Enescu Festival n Bucharest Vladimir Jurowski celebrates the centennial of Die Frau one Schatten’s premiere.

Ligeti's “anti-anti opera” opens in Zurich in a new production by Tatjana Gürbaca. 

There’s no doubt that Mélisande endeavours to escape past troubles when she first appears in Barrie Kosky’s production of Debussy’s opera, yet Nadja Mchantaf is no reticent, wispy maiden. Every vocal and physical gesture – always precise and penetrating – displays an atypically forthright quest for vitality, something that Arkel’s chauvinistic world does not readily offer.

Franz Schreker’s Die Gezeichneten (The Branded One) is an unsettling work given the storyline’s background of abduction and clandestine sexual abuse. Calixto Bieito, as expected, eschews ambiguity regarding what goes on behind the scenes, and casts even the titular cripple Alviano Salvago in a damning light.

Shostakovich's early masterpiece is fêted at the Komische Oper Berlin

The Spanish director offers a controversial angle but tones it down to focus on dark psychology rather than spectacle in his staging of Schrecker's hothouse opera.

“Fiddler on the Roof” as a universal parable of tradition 

Introspected and atmospheric, this late romantic opera appeals to the psychotherapists within us.

A skilfully constructed production, and one that plays with the our perspectives. Whether the images are flashbacks from a war-troubled Wozzeck or a Büchner-esque portent of the horrors to come is left for the audience to decide.

Sorochyntsi Fair was last performed at Berlin's Komische Oper in 1948 by the legendary stage director Walter Felsenstein. Now Barrie Kosky, stage director and intendant, has tried his hand.

There may be spiders, or zombies above your head. A spook show? Berlin's Komische Oper premiers a gothic musical theatre work by Heinrich Marschner... and it is a gory, good romp.

Barrie Kosky's production of Schoenberg's unfinished masterpiece is brought to musical life by Vladimir Jurowski's intense and compelling interpretation.

Signs of birth and death – but moreso death – flash continuously through the Latvian director Viestur Kairish’s new production of Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which opened the Komische Oper Berlin’s 2013/14 season.

Germany is the land of Regie-Theater, opera in which the director’s vision is paramount, and where that vision frequently contains an alternative tale in a modern setting based on thoughts that the opera has inspired in the director.

Die Hommage an den 2024 verstorbenen ungarischen Komponisten wird zum Großerfolg: Evgeny Titov wartet mit einer schlüssigen Inszenierung auf, und Maxime Pascal steuert mit dem Klangforum Wien viel Atmosphärisches bei. 

Kein Mozart für Puristen: Serebrennikov schafft ein dicht erzähltes Sozialdrama über unermesslichen Wohlstand, die Schattenseiten der hochstilisierten Glamourwelt und all jene, auf deren geschundenen Rücken dieser Reichtum verdient ist.

Barrie Kosky macht Rimsky-Korsakows letzte Oper zu einer Persiflage auf den mittelalten Mann in der Midlife Crisis.

Christoph Marthaler siedelt Verdis letzte Oper an einem Filmset an und produziert dabei wohl keinen Kassenschlager; immerhin rettet die musikalische Seite den Abend vor dem Flop.

Vor 25 Jahren feierte Andreas Homokis Inszenierung von Prokofjews Oper Premiere; in dieser Saison ist sie ein letztes Mal zu sehen. 

So schön das Orchester im Walzertakt schwingt, so lustlos und unschön sind Beschallung und Inszenierung.

Christian Gerhaher gibt sein Münchener Wozzeck-Debüt in Kriegenburgs zeitlos packender Inszenierung.

Barrie Kosky spielt in einer neuen Fassung von Die Krönung der Poppea an der Komischen Oper mit traditionellen Konventionen des Männlich-Weiblichen.