Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Aleš Briscein

The director drains the life out of an impassioned opera with a staging devoid of authenticity and ideas.

Robert Carsen's new production of Janáček’s The Excursions of Mr Brouček for the Staatsoper Unter den Linden scores a well-deserved success thanks to a stellar – or rather, lunar – conducted by Sir Simon Rattle.

Directors Martin Kukučka and Lukáš Trpišovský, who work together as SKUTR, take on Dvořák’s Rusalka with a surfeit of ideas. 

Superb singing and brilliant work in the pit can't quite rescue Jiří Nekvasil's overambitious production.

Aided by spirited singers and enthusiastic musicians, director Ondřej Havelka brings an imaginative, ironic touch to a lesser-known Smetana opera.

Installation art sounds a dissonant note with the sublime harmony of Saint François d’Assise in Adel Abdessemed's creation at the Grand Théâtre de Genève. 

Who needs a stage, sets or costumes, when opera can move us like this? Agneta Eichenholz leads a terrific cast in a concert performance of Janáček's searing opera. 

Armida offers a compelling story, resonant issues and the spectacle of dueling wizards – but unfortunately, not in this production.

Director Tatjana Gürbaca and Czech conductor Tomáš Netopil deliver a “Romantic” Kátya Kabanová from the Grand Théâtre de Genève at Brno’s Janáček Festival.

Franz Schreker's innovative study of artistic aspiration and despair gets a fresh look and loving musical treatment.

There could be no more appropriate choice than the Glagolitic Mass, with its text of Old Church Slavonic, for a concert which Bychkov had dedicated to the people of Ukraine.

Great performances cannot rescue the Norwegian director's superficial treatment of a classic ghost story.

The National Theater opens the season with Rodion Shchedrin's searing version of Lolita, with spectacularly disturbing results.

In Robert Carsen's staging, the “dead city” is absent: the scenery showing a bourgeois room that one imagines overlooking a bright avenue in Vienna or Berlin rather than a dark alley in Bruges.

A colorful, light-hearted approach captures the spirit of Prokofiev's LʼAmour des trois oranges.

The Komische Oper's new staging of Korngold's opera doesn't quite offer the necessary scale or atmosphere. 

Smetana's Libuše makes a timely reappearance in Prague.

The profusion of images and ideas in Frank Castorf's Bavarian Staatsoper production of From the House of the Dead threatens to rob Janáček's opera of its humanity.

Tchaikovsky's opera packs a powerful emotional punch in the Komische Oper's concentrated and dreamlike production.

Without glitz, extravagance or the need to be expressly shocking, Robert Carsen's new production of Wozzeck at the Theater an der Wien is exceptional.

Clad in sulphurous yellow with beaded jet shoulder pads she looked well able to vanquish Lohengrin in single combat with the swish of her cloak.

Zemlinsky's tortured take on Oscar Wilde's Birthday of the Infanta is given a harrowing treatment; Aleš Briscein convinces as the dwarf of the title.

National Theatre Brno brings David Radok’s 2014 staging of Janáček’s Makropulos Case to the Hong Kong Arts Festival, the opera's first-ever journey to Asia, with Annalena Persson in the lead.

A concert performance of Dvořák’s Dimitrij opened the fourth season of Boston’s intrepid Odyssey Opera, constituting the US première of Milan Pospíšil’s 2004 critical edition of the original 1882 score. 

Whilst the spirit of Mozart permeates the Estates Theatre in Prague, it was sadly absent in both the staging and singing of his “work of uninterrupted perfection”.  

Karita Mattila produces a star turn in the title role, but a pure concert staging does little to bring out the cleverness of the libretto of Janáček’s Makropulos Case.

With a Slovak team at the helm, the National Theater offers a smart, fresh take on a familiar story.

It's not for nothing that Janáček's opera is properly titled Její pastorkyňa (Her Stepdaughter). Karita Mattila's Kostelnička was at the centre of a powerful concert performance of Jenůfa.

Barrie Kosky's new production of Eugene Onegin at the Komische Oper Berlin is delicious for the eyes, ears and emotions. 

The National Theater opens the new opera season with a gripping, thought-provoking production of Bellini's romantic tragedy.

Czech conductor energises the London Philharmonic in three contrasting works, including one of the 20th century's greatest choral masterpieces.

Despite some staging problems, a Czech rarity gives the National Theater's new opera season a rousing start, with a vibrant score beautifully realized by conductor John Fiore.

At the end of the season, and before closing for the summer break, the Komische Oper Berlin reprise some of their most successful recent productions for one night only in the Komische Oper Festival, including the popular “cartoon” Magic Flute. Included in this busy week was a performance of Tchaikovsky’s Mazeppa, a rarely performed epic opera of battle-torn love and murder.

Dans le chef-d'œuvre de Janáček globalement bien servi par la distribution, la mise en scène de Tatjana Gürbaca fait le pari judicieux d’un jeu psychologique pur, malgré quelques limites.

El Festival Internacional de Santander cierra con un intenso e idiomático viaje por obras de compositores checos a cargo de la Czech Philharmonic.

Reprise de l'Onéguine de Barrie Kosky à Berlin : un spectacle toujours aussi bouleversant, avec cette fois-ci Ruzan Mantashyan en Tatiana.

Le cinéaste hongrois Kornél Mundruczó propose une vision originale et puissamment dramatique du chef-d'œuvre de Janáček, portée par une Rachel Harnisch incandescente. 

El concierto con el que La Filarmónica inauguró su temporada finalizó con un asombroso despliegue del Orfeón en la Novena de Beethoven (perfectamente afinado y nítidamente proyectado sobre la masa instrumental de la Orquesta de Praga) que no proporcionó, sin embargo, la satisfacción que requerían las circunstancias.

Die Grazer Oper wagt sich mit Werken von Alexander Zemlinsky und Luigi Dallapiccola auf selten gespieltes Terrain, hinterlässt aber einige szenische Fragezeichen.

Ecouter un opéra en version de concert permet de mieux se concentrer sur la musique. Et quand il s’agit de Rusalka, le chef d’œuvre lyrique d’Antonin Dvorak, interprété par l’un des meilleurs orchestres symphoniques du monde, le Budapest Festival Orchestra, qui plus est dirigé par son talentueux fondateur et toujours directeur Iván Fischer, le bonheur ne peut être qu’au rendez-vous.