Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Anna Prohaska

Nearing the close of the season, Deutsche Oper Berlin premieres Rebecca Saunders’ first opera Lash – Acts of Love, a visceral reflection on love and death.

The Toronto Symphony Orchestra’s latest concert, tipped for European touring next year, fails to convince.

John Adams returns to Toronto to conduct the TSO in an exciting and varied programme marked also by the debut of Spotlight Artist Anna Prohaska. 

No half measures in a triple-decker Hamburg staging of Saint François d'Assise at the Elbphilharmonie. 

At the Musikfest Berlin, Sir George Benjamin and the Ensemble Modern present an all-contemporary programme reflecting on nature, including Cantico delle Creature.

Sir George Benjamin and Martin Crimp’s fourth opera shares the best qualities of their previous work but is an inspiring, breathtaking fable.

Stepping in for Sir Simon Rattle, Marc Minkowski's balanced, lyrical approach to Schumann's oratorio proves successful.

This enticing ensemble of soprano and piano trio evoked, delighted and expressed with heightened intensity in less well-known repertoire, including from some big names.

“How Excellent.”  The first words sung in Handel’s Saul are in praise of God and were first uttered in a performance nearly three centuries ago. But they apply equally to Claus Guth’s interpretation of the work staged by Theater an der Wien.

Dmitri Tcherniakov updates the "German Romantic Opera" into a modern-day thriller with interesting twists in a musically splendid performance in Munich.

After its Covid-19 “Quarantine soirées”, the Budapest Festival Orchestra celebrates the end of lockdown by taking on a two-concert international tour!

Barenboim conducts Otto Nicolai's Falstaff opera with a warmth and affection that is sorely lacking on stage. 

A performance of Handel's short masterpiece Apollo e Dafne at the Halle Handel Festival was somewhat disappointing but Fulvio Bettini impressed in the bass role.

Excellent musical performances are confounded by clumsy, unimaginative staging in Rameau's explosive first opera.

Anna Prohaska reigns supreme in programme of Cleopatra and Dido-inspired Baroque arias in her late night Prom.

Sir Bryn Terfel’s Falstaff is still a cherishable rogue as he takes on the title role in Robert Carsen’s joyous staging at the Royal Opera. 

Berliner Philharmoniker’s interpretation of Das Paradies und die Peri reaches for the heavens. 

Two rarely performed works are showcased by the Staatskapelle under Daniel Barenboim.

The Staatsoper's new L'incoronazione di Poppea is serious, intelligent but short on fire.

At the Theater an der Wien, director Mariame Clément and novelist Lucy Wadham have crafted innovative material that brings the old-fashioned lyrics to life in a coherent and contemporary dramatic setting.

Concerto Köln, honed to perfection, and an accomplished cast star in Claus Guth's tense, dark staging of Handel's Jephtha. 

Themed around legendary African queens Dido and Cleopatra, Prohaska’s recital with the virtuosi of Il Giardino Armonico could serve as a template for the ideal Baroque programme.

A nameless octet competes with the big names and easily wins the silver medal in Salzburg.

Any production of Le nozze di Figaro in which both Marcellina and Barbarina give star performances is ensemble casting at its finest.

Director Michael Thalheimer staging Weber’s Der Freischütz entirely in the Wolf’s Glen, albeit relocated from a “fearsome forest gorge” to what looks like a badger’s sett. 

The 67th Aix Festival got off to a hot, heady start with Katie Mitchell's witty and ingenious staging of Handel's 1735 sorcery opera Alcina. 

In a thoroughly riveting recital at the Concertgebouw, soprano Anna Prohaska probes Ophelia’s psyche through songs from the nineteenth century onwards.

Zabou Breitman brings silver screen glamour to Paris Opera's production of Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail, with the show stolen by Anna Prohaska's Blonde.

With speculation rife as to whether Sir Simon Rattle will become principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra upon departing from the Berlin Philharmonic, this electrifying concert provided a tantalising glimpse of what the future might have in store. 

Robert Carsen’s production is an exercise in extreme minimalism. Dialogues des Carmélites is a great opera, and this production touches greatness without quite grasping it in both hands. 

My mother always told me not to sit too close in the theatre, and after seeing this revival of Martin Kusej’s modern realization of Stravinksy’s The Rake’s Progress at the Theater an der Wien, I think I know what she was talking about.Act I begins innocuously enough in a sparse apartment, unfurnished apart from a mattress and a television.

The Theater an der Wien has a storied history with Fidelio, having hosted the première of the work’s first and second versions in 1805 and 1806 respectively.

There are some musical compositions that have always been a bit of a gamble, for composers, performers and even listeners. They might be exceptionally difficult, require extraordinary forces, or show such originality as to be perpetually startling.

Friedrich Nietzsche’s life was not that of an isolated contemplative but rather full of personal frustration, eventually ending in syphilitic madness. While his work has been often linked with music--most notably in his relationship with Wagner and Richard Strauss’s tone poem based on Also sprach Zarathustra--making his life into an opera may seem a dubious proposition.

Romeo Castellucci firma esta producción y capitanea una escenificación potente, incisiva, aunque poco emocional donde la archiconocida misa de difuntos transmuta a un canto por la celebración de la vida.

Seis instituciones internacionales participan en este proyecto, recreando una misa de difuntos personal, donde el autor pone a la humanidad a llorar las consecuencias de sus propios deseos.

In einer prächtigen Klangerzählung präsentierte Thomas Hengelbrock mit den Balthasar-Neumann-Ensembles und erlesenen Solistinnen und Solisten die sechs Schöpfungstage, wie Joseph Haydn sie empfand.

Le dernier opéra de George Benjamin (créé à Aix-en-Provence en 2023) remporte un triomphe mérité, emmené par une Marianne Crebassa au sommet de son art.

Belle idée que d'associer les Eight Songs for a Mad King de Peter Maxwell Davies et des Kafka-Fragmente de György Kurtág, dans une mise en scène de Barrie Kosky et avec un ensemble d'interprètes brillants !

Avec la classe de Meryl Streep en récitante et la coopération remarquable de toutes les forces vives de la Maison ronde, la création du compositeur et songwriter tient ses promesses.

Ni el excelente trabajo de la orquesta logra rescatar el peso de unos cantantes a medio gas y de una escena con fondo escaso y forma agotada.

Ein aufwühlender Opernabend, an dem vor allem in der Musik das grandiose Drama stattfand.

Mettant à l'honneur plusieurs œuvres rares, ce programme des Berliner Philharmoniker dirigés par le chef français nous plonge dans un univers mélancolique illuminé par la performance de la violoniste allemande. 

L'Orchestre baroque de Fribourg dirigé par Sir Simon Rattle livre une interprétation formidable du chef-d'œuvre de Rameau, avec une distribution exceptionnelle jusque dans les importants rôles secondaires.

Herausragende stimmliche Leistungen und Antonello Manacordas Leitung werden in der Staatsoper begeistert aufgenommen.

Mit dieser Inszenierung feiert Claus Guth nach Messiah und Saul einen erfolgreichen Händel-Hattrick.

Regisseur Claus Guth und Laurence Cummings am Pult formen Händels Saul zu einem berührenden Gesamtkunstwerk.

Mit Faurés Requiem und Saint-Saens Orgelsymphonie bilden zwei spätromantische Werke das Programm des Chorkonzertes der Salzburgerfestspiele, in dem besonders der Chors des BR beeindruckt.

Das Theater an der Wien feiert sein 10-jähriges Bestehen mit einer von Nikloaus Harnoncourt eingerichteten Fassung der Leonore von 1806.