Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | James Darrah

A memorable night at the opera as Andris Nelsons conducts Così fan tutte at the Tanglewood Festival. 

Stripped of melodramatic excess, soprano Patricia Racette and director James Darrah craft a portrait of a desperate, lonely woman that is uncomfortably, thrillingly human.

James Darrah stages Handel's sensual oratorio for Festival O, a feast of wonderful singing. 

Handel's Alcina at the Karlsruhe 2019 Handel Festival scores on all fronts, with two Australians taking the main roles. 

Chaotic staging detracts from imaginative pairing of Poulenc's songs with his one-act, one-performer opera. 

Muted portrayals dilute the danger of the work, but excellent singing saves the performance. 

The world première of Breaking the Waves was a qualified success, with a powerful drama performed with commitment by strong cast and musicians.

Leon Botstein and the American Symphony Orchestra revive Mascagni's Iris in a fully staged version in Frank Gehry's architecturally stunning Richard B Fisher Center at Bard College.

Even Emperor Josef II would have thought this was a bad idea. The real-life monarch depicted in Peter Shaffer’s fictional play Amadeus quite memorably forbade ballet in his court operas. But the absurdity of the dancers carrying on with no music playing in Mozart’s Act III convinced the Emperor that he was in the wrong.

“Love conquers all.” Too often this phrase has been repeated, yet too true this statement has proven. Rather than just being a passionate emotion in which desires of the world and flesh prevail, true love is a genuine feeling which trials or extreme evil cannot break, even in the most difficult of circumstances.