Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Fflur Wyn

A good, honest staging and solid singing add up to an excellent new production – its third – at Opera Holland Park. 

This year’s Gala Conzert at Göttingen featured two different works not commonly heard and certainly not together, with excellent soloists and the Christ Church Cathedral Choir

The fashion for reviving Mozart's teenage operas brings a vocally dazzling production of Lucio Silla to Buxton, nevertheless hampered by the work's own lack of believable drama and some fairly flat staging. 

Opera North's Hansel and Gretel at the Grand Theatre Leeds, directed by Edward Dick, is witty and perceptive, with some insights provide by Freudian psychanalysis

Opera North revives Sir David McVicar's 2002 production of Der Rosenkavalier under new Musical Director Alexander Markovic.  

The London Mozart Players and a talented company of singers presented a special chance to hear a rare, unfinished Mozart opera in an even rarer guise. 

Opera North's revival of L'elisir d'amour directed by Daniel Slater at the Grand Theatre, Leeds, still bubbles with life, in spite of its age.

In spite of the not insignificant problems, Opera Rara are utterly convincing that Leoncavallo's Zazà is a work that should be seen and heard more often.

With Lawrence Zazzo's spectacular counter-tenor voice, Handel's Orlando finds an ideal interpreter.

Ailyn Bozok's minimlaist production of Delibes' Lakmé at Opera Holland Park contains much tender beauty and is carried by fine musical performances. 

Welsh National Opera's new production of Rossini's William Tell shows off orchestra and chorus to their full under Carlo Rizzi's baton

Alice's story in a sparkling outdoor production for families, which will not disappoint mainstream opera enthusiasts.

Vert-Vert, undoubtedly the only opera named after a dead parrot, is a very, very silly opera – more a series of comic sketches than an integrated work. But in Garsington's production, everything delights.

This innovative and clever new opera by Julian Philips and Edward Kemp at the Royal Opera’s Linbury Studio Theatre is a delight, with appeal for adults as well as children.

The penultimate concert in a three-year project to record the complete songs of Hugo Wolf, this Oxford Lieder Festival concert’s programme was based around settings of Goethe.

Siegfried, the “Second Day” of Der Ring des Nibelungen and the third staging by Opera North after Die Walküre in 2012 and Das Rheingold the year before, is just as enthralling as its predecessors.

In spite of the fact that a Handel oratorio, however renowned, provides limited opportunities for staging, this production of Joshua, directed by Charles Edwards, is a largely successful exercise in the art of the possible.

This new production of Mozart’s final, and often overlooked, opera from John Fulljames and Opera North is neither a period piece nor a straightforward translation into our own time. Instead, it inhabits it own dark and austere world created by set designer Conor Murphy and Finn Ross, whose stylish abstract projections incorporate elements of government buildings both ancient and modern.

Classical music is not cool. Most people who’ve come through secondary school with a love for it are well aware of that, having been frequently reminded of it by their peers. As a result of this, most of us probably couldn’t care less, though I’m sure we all question, when beholding some particularly awesome musical event, the premises on which this schoolyard assumption is based.

Handel’s Jephtha is an oratorio, rather than an opera. However, the story is one of high drama and emotion, and thus the work lends itself easily to operatic adaptation.

There was a sense of celebration in the air at the Sage Gateshead, as the Northern Sinfonia orchestra and chorus began their tenth season under the direction of Thomas Zehetmair with an all-Mozart programme. The hall was full, and before welcoming Zehetmair to the stage, Sage General Director Anthony Sargent had a bit of fun showing off Hall One’s fancy new multi-coloured lighting effects.

The concept of freedom is at the heart of Opera North's current production of Fidelio. As soon as you open your programme, you are encouraged by the company's General Director Richard Mantle to consider Beethoven's only opera as having something to say about the struggle for liberty that has been taking place in the Middle East over the past few months.

Part of the King’s Place Mozart Unwrapped series, the Aurora Orchestra delivered a spellbinding performance Thursday night.Due to Sir Colin Davis’ sudden illness, principal conductor Nicholas Collon stepped in at the last minute to conduct the concert. While it would have been a unique opportunity to see such an esteemed British conductor, Nicholas Collon was an exciting substitution.

The Lion's Face: The name comes from the clinicial description of the Alzheimer face with features settling into “leonine impassivity.” Librettist Glyn Maxwell spent five years researching this opera about dementia and this shines through in his portrayal of the life of an Alzheimer's patient in a nursing home.

Mark Padmore est aujourd’hui l’un des Évangélistes les plus renommés et expérimentés de la scène internationale. Pour ce concert qu'il dirige aussi il a choisi un effectif de 16 chanteurs pour l'ensemble des parties vocales.

En février 2015, c’est un opéra de Philippe Boesmans qui est créé à l'Opéra Comique après l’avoir été en 2014 à La Monnaie de Bruxelles : Au monde. Du très grand art, fondé sur le théâtre d’une étrangeté captivante de Joël Pommerat.