Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Kim Begley

Toby Spence, Matthew Rose and Andrew Watts shine in a fluent semi-staging at the Royal Festival Hall.

Brett Dean's Hamlet is an extremely powerful theatrical experience, excelling in all aspects of production, singing and musical values, but is it an opera?

With Andris Nelsons' withdrawal from Bayreuth last year, the BSO’s summer home, Tanglewood, became the venue for his Wagner with a concert performance of Das Rheingold

Brett Dean treats Shakespeare's behemoth as a timeless story told in language that has become timeless; no effort is spared in elucidating and amplifying that story.

Kasper Holten’s production does an impressive job of exploring the concepts of Szymanowski's Król Roger – perhaps more psychologically than philosophically. It’s a production well worth exploring.

Earnest singing and dramatic insight made Das Rheingold with the Hong Kong Philharmonic a remarkable evening. 

A successful production for a scandalous opera which exercised a broad influence on the musical theatre of the 20th century.

For a taut drama about the relationships between men thrown together in an enclosed space, it's hard to imagine a better setting than the claustrophobic environment of a warship in Nelson's navy.

The glittering white of a luxury cruise liner above, the darkened hell of the concentration camp below. Johan Engels' set for Weinberg's The Passenger, first seen at the Bregenz festival in 2010 and now at the ENO in London, is one of the most striking and effective opera sets I've ever seen, both framing the action and adding colour.

Read our review of Jürgen Flim's production of Salome in its 2008 broadcast from the Met Opera in New York.