Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Dame Sarah Connolly

Dame Sarah Connolly and Julius Drake savour the al fresco surrounds of the Villa Foce to produce a delightful evening of eclectic music in four languages. Delizioso!

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.

A packed recital given by mezzo-soprano Sarah Connolly at Brighton Festival.    

James Conlon led the CSO in Schubert’s Unfinished symphony and Mahler’s Das Lied von der Lied.  Mixed fortunes were had for the singers in the latter, but Conlon and the orchestra provided probing performances throughout.

A disappointing pairing of Berlioz and Mendelssohn from a conductorless Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. 

William Kentridge's Lulu for ENO is easier to admire than it is to love. But if you want to be challenged dramatically, this is the opera to do it.

Bernard Haitink doesn't disappoint in a mature, considered reading of Mahler's epic Third Symphony. 

Singing, orchestral playing and scenic portrayal all combine to make a highly memorable second instalment of Wagner's Ring.

Bayreuth's controversial Ring returns with a new conductor and a refreshed cast.

Johan Reuter leads an all star cast in a revelatory performance of George Enescu's masterpiece, aided by spectacular La Fura dels Baus staging.

The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment takes on its biggest ever challenge under the baton of Vladimir Jurowski.

Sir Simon and Berln Philharmonic triumphed in a thought-provoking production of Tristan und Isolde with a fine ensemble of singers.

As part of their blockbuster festival programme Simon Rattle and his brawny Berliners offered Beethoven’s Ninth in a monumental performance. 

Richard Jones creates forceful theatre by staging Ariodante as a tale of shaming and abuse. Andrea Marcon conducts an accomplished cast and the first-class Concerto Köln.

In Rotterdam, Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts a gracefully contoured Beethoven Sixth Symphony and, together with fabulous vocal and instrumental soloists, reaches core-deep into Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde.

A report from the 2015 Three Choirs Festival, held this year in the cathedral city of Hereford. 

Toby Spence and Sarah Connolly make splendid soulful companions and conductor Peter Oundjian brings a resonant depth to Elgar's period-piece in a fine end to the RSNO's season.

Two classic scores by Berlioz and a musical memorial to Bliss’ brother made a deep impression. 

Orient meets Occident in three performances of English works conducted by the Japanese maestro Tadaaki Otaka.

A clever programme of mid-20th century American music by Carter, Copland and contemporaries, watered down with a light sprinkling of Arlen and Gershwin.

First class performances from Stephen Gould and Nina Stemme are backed by a magnificent orchestral performance in the Royal Opera's revival of Christof Loy's spartan production.

In the spirit of Hallowe'en, Mahler’s Second Symphony focuses on the idea of Zombification; however, any mention of eating brains didn’t pass Mahler’s final edits. 

Detailed, transparent readings from the London Sinfonietta brought out the modernist in early Schoenberg, but passion and atmosphere were lacking.

An imaginative and wonderfully performed programme of ecclesiastical works wrought in peril, alienation and exile.

The BBC Symphony Orchestra première the first of two late works by John Tavener this Proms season and Isabelle Faust excels in Bartók and Bach. 

Whooping horns, a single yellow rose and a velvety cushion of strings set the scene for a sumptuous tranche of highlights from Der Rosenkavalier in the London Symphony Orchestra’s latest concert commemorating Richard Strauss in his 150th anniversary year.

Richard Egarr leads the Academy of Ancient Music and a stellar team of vocal soloists in an unapologetically lush and dramatic St Matthew Passion.

Edward Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius tells the story of a pious man’s death, his travels through Purgatory and finally being accepted into Heaven. It is perhaps not the most dramatic of tales, but one filled with a sense of redemption and intense spirituality. 

Yannick Nézet-Séguin explores the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s palette in an intoxicating French programme, celebrating the restoration of the Royal Festival Hall’s organ. 

Profound, fair and thought-provoking, Handel's Theodora argues for faith as a personal journey, not a political decree. The English Concert brought their rendition to the Barbican Centre in London.

The English Concert and Harry Bicket bring Theodora to Carnegie Hall, with Dorothea Röschmann, David Daniels and Sarah Connolly.

Offenbach’s wrongfully neglected masterpiece has returned to us at last, thanks to the concerted efforts of Opera Rara, the Orchestra of the Age of the Enlightenment and Sir Mark Elder; and, above all, because of the tireless, lifelong devotion of one man: Jean-Christophe Keck.

Gloucestershire is rich in musical heritage; well-known composers connected with the county include Parry, Vaughan Williams and Howells, but one name that is less familiar these days is that of Howells’ friend Ivor Gurney.

In a brief mid-concert interview for BBC Radio 3, conductor Sian Edwards was asked why Britten and his contemporaries wrote so much music for small string orchestra, and her answer illuminated the choice of programming for this Proms Saturday Matinee performance.

When going to see a new production at ENO, always expect the unexpected. In ENO’s recent history, that has certainly been true, though not always to its credit. Friday’s opening performance of Charpentier’s Medea was no exception to the rule; however, in this case, it was an opulent, stylish and fabulous (in more than one sense) production, complemented by a truly spectacular cast.

If you've been brought up with the Judaeo-Christian ideal of an all-powerful, all-good God, Norse mythology can come as a bit of a shock. Wotan, the father of the gods, is philandering, deceitful, power-hungry, sentimental, violent and ultimately weak - the gamut of human frailties writ large.

The numerous links and connections between each of tonight’s pieces make this a very cleverly crafted programme, on paper at least.

A second scorching day in Hereford at the Three Choirs Festival concluded with another excellent concert.Before an audience that filled the cathedral to capacity, the Philharmonia Orchestra assembled on the platform and a warm welcome was given to conductor Peter Nardone.The concert opened with John Ireland’s evocative orchestral opus A London Overture.

The first night of the Proms was, in this year of Olympic celebrations and the Diamond Jubilee, a tribute to all things English, featuring an impressive range of singers and a (somewhat appropriate) relay team of stellar English conductors. The programme began with a strange mixture of old and new.

Whatever your theological convictions, Christian or otherwise, it is doubtless that the collective elements that make up The Dream of Gerontius contribute to one of the greatest works of both English literature and the English Choral Tradition.

English National opera's first première of 2012 is a revival of David McVicar's 2008 production of Richard Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier, in splendid rococo period setting. They pulled out all the stops in casting: the four lead roles were all sung and acted wonderfully by English singers at the very top of their game.

Before attending Sir Mark Elder and the Britten Sinfonia’s performance of L’enfance du Christ, I could have claimed to be almost entirely ignorant of Berlioz’s music. The only exception – apart from an innocuous bucolic passage from Harold in Italy I ‘studied’ at A-level – was ‘The Shepherd’s Farewell’, which makes my Christmas chocolate box list annually.

The last of this season’s Proms Choral Sundays featured one of the most complex of all choral works, Beethoven’s massive Missa Solemnis, written around the time of his 9th symphony.

Mendelssohn’s oratorio Elijah, first performed at the Birmingham Town Hall in 1847, was enormously popular in Victorian England. In this sense, the Royal Albert Hall, the grandest of Victorian buildings, is spiritually an ideal venue for this great choral masterpiece.

It takes any orchestra plenty of confidence and daring to embark on a single-work programme. There isn’t much chance for redemption should something go amiss. Then again, the length of Mahler’s third symphony and its demands on physical and emotional stamina don’t leave the Philharmonia Orchestra and conductor Lorin Maazel much choice.

The songs of Des Knaben Wunderhorn ("The Youth’s Magic Horn") form the basis for so much of Mahler’s music that it pays to hear some of them alongside a symphony (in the case the well-known Fifth Symphony, in the latest of the Philharmonia/Maazel collaborations).

Friday night's performance by the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in the Royal Festival Hall under Vladimir Jurowski got off to a slow and somewhat insecure start. Sixth in the series of concerts by the orchestra in the 2010-2011 season, sub-titled Symphonic Enlightenment, the concert opened with the Prelude to Parsifal by Wagner.

Created out of the period instrument movement, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (OAE) is dedicated to performing works on original instruments (or copies of them) so that audiences can hear music the way it was originally intended to be heard.

Le 19 avril 2016, la Philharmonie de Paris accueillait l’Orchestre et les Chœurs de l’Opéra national de Paris, ainsi que le Chœur philharmonique de Prague, pour une œuvre monumentale : les Gurre-Lieder de Schönberg. Une odyssée sonore enivrante, construite avec soin et conduite avec passion par Philippe Jordan.

La venue de l’Orchestre Philharmonique de Rotterdam au Théâtre des Champs-Elysées est depuis plusieurs années l’un des événements parmi les plus attendus de la saison symphonique parisienne. Encore une fois, un grand moment musical fut au rendez-vous.