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Wagner demands vocal resilience from the large cast of singers in Das Rheingold, but Willy Decker wants strong thigh muscles as well.

Willy Decker's production, presented in Zürich in 2014, is revived at the Hamburgische Staatsoper with most of the same cast

The Teatro Real opened its 200th anniversary season with a revival of Claus Guth's brilliant production and a great cast, led by Kurt Streit and Silvia Tro Santafé.

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.

Anno Schreier's successful new opera Hamlet is the first of a series of three Shakespeare-inspired offerings from Theater an der Wien this season. 

Sebastian Weigle leads a somewhat light-footed but satisfying account with a fine orchestra and good ensemble of singers in an architecturally stunning production.

Christof Loy’s minimalist staging for Khovanshchina at Dutch National Opera has the advantage of clarifying a reputedly fragmented plot. 

From its stunningly filmic opening to its faux-Golgotha finale, the Royal Opera House’s new production of Weill’s Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny demands our attention. 

Seeing Zürich Opera’s new production of Monteverdi’s Il ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria made me wonder why this is the least performed of Monteverdi's three surviving operas. 

Schubert's unfinished oratorio Lazarus joined with other interesting works by both Schubert and Charles Ives in a staged performance at the Theater an der Wien, directed by Claus Guth. Strongly cast, the musical juxtaposition works better than the oratorio itself, and the rather cold dramaturgy.

Director William Friedkin doesn’t put a dramaturgical foot wrong in his Theater an der Wien production of The Tales of Hoffmann and yet doesn’t challenge, or even engage with, any of the opera’s Romantic positions.

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Scorned womanhood has no better archetype than Euripides's Medea. And you're unlikely to see a more powerful or affecting Medea than Nadja Michael's performance in Cherubini's opera Médée, in the first production of the new season at La Monnaie in Brussels (De Munt, if you're a Flemish speaker.)Like all good Greek tragedy, we all know the story.

Nikolaus Harnoncourt is the elder statesman of the historical performance movement and one of the pillars of Vienna’s musical scene.

Vera Nemirova inszeniert an der Frankfurter Oper ein etwas abgegriffenes Rheingold. Das Frankfurter Opernorchester unter Sebastian Weigle jedoch bereichert mit schlankem Wagner-Klang aus klaren Konturen und sicher gesetzten Effekten.

Le 12 décembre 2014, La Clémence de Titus est représentée au Théâtre des Champs-Élysées : la suite du cycle Mozart débuté par l'excellent Jérémie Rhorer depuis quelques années. Une production qui rassemble beaucoup de beau monde…