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A pleasurable evening of surprises in Marco Arturo Marelli’s Turandot.

The Don is dark and light, the production somewhere in between, with strong singing and musical direction but stodgy staging. 

At 78, Domingo rages against the ravages of time, and – certainly in this production – shows the next generation a thing or two about stagecraft.

Countertenor Lawrence Zazzo is more than at home in the role of Oberon, and possesses a vocal quality ideal for the scheming king of the fairies, simultaneously eerie and seductive.

Riccardo Muti conducted a stirring performance of Verdi's Requiem to mark the 30th anniversary of Karajan's death.

Salzburg's new staging of Enescu's operatic epic Oedipe is a visual and musical triumph.

During the “Salce” and “Ave Maria” in Act Four Bezsmertna turned this to magical effect, thinning out and floating her shimmering soprano into gossamer threads.

Juan Diego Flórez was impressive in his first portrayal of a lovesick soldier/priest in Manon, with Nino Machaidze's accomplished heroine. Andrei Serban's modern and thoughtful production was still fresh and arresting.

The outstanding trio of Nylund, Stemme and Herlitzius soars above a Vienna State Opera Orchestra in thunderous form, led by Christian Thielemann to celebrate the Staatsoper's 150th birthday in style.

A solid cast led by Juan Diego Flórez revives Günther Rennert’s production, which still amuses after more than 400 performances. 

An epic night at the opera with Joyce DiDonato, which will be hard to forget.

Vienna State Opera offered a solid production in which precious little gleamed.

Saint-Saëns' exotic dip into the Bible is given a cool update in Alexandra Liedtke's new production at the Wiener Staatsoper.

Jean-Louis Martinoty’s scenically seductive Don Giovanni comes as a welcome relief from recent Regietheater aberrations. 

The current stage-setting of Arabella at the Wiener Staatsoper proves that “all that’s Glittenberg” is not gold.

Vienna staged the first three-act performance of Lulu with Willy Decker adding to his 2000 production, with excellent singing contributing to its success.

German theatre director Uwe Eric Laufenberg freely incorporates some of Stanley Kubrik’s horror story concepts into his Elektra, but in ignoring both Sophocles and Strauss, is a long way from shining.  

The Wiener Staatsoper revives a beautiful production of Daphne that juxtaposes myth, dream and reality, with brilliant vocal performances by the two leads.

High intensity girl power for a complex task: Simone Young shines in the pit, Karoline Gruber’s staging convinces with expertise and attention to detail.

Gun-Brit Barkmin’s Salome was neither sexy, salacious, psycho-erotic nor particularly well sung.

Muti's reading of the score is extraordinary, both for its sophistication and originality.

A skilfully constructed production, and one that plays with the our perspectives. Whether the images are flashbacks from a war-troubled Wozzeck or a Büchner-esque portent of the horrors to come is left for the audience to decide.

Under Mariss Jansons, the Vienna Philharmonic are on top form in Shostakovich's opera; together with a top class cast of singers, they create sonic and emotional intoxication.

Stefan Vinke was a convincing, petulant, pouty Siegfried in the third episode in Wagner's Ring cycle in Vienna.

Sven-Eric Bechtolf’s minimalist staging brought the protagonists’ complicated psychological interaction into focus but to the detriment of Wagner’s myth and magic.

A festive air was palpable – the house was technically sold out – as the first of a set of three Ring cycles launched at the Wiener Staatsoper. 

In 2010, the première of Reimann's Medea was welcomed with enthusiasm, leading the Staatsoper to relaunch it this season for a second run.

Sir David McVicar's production of Tristan und Isolde premiered at the Wiener Staatsoper in 2013, and was then recognized as a friendly platform for singers. Here it is freshly revived with a new cast.

Vienna stages an all-star new production of Verdi's classic, with sublime singing in Daniele Abbado's Spanish Civil War setting.

Die tote Stadt at the Vienna State Opera features strong playing and singing but little drama.

The Staatsoper's new Falstaff is a production that is attractive not only visually, but also in terms of the varied musical color.

Baroque purists might prefer a more surefire line-up of brilliantly executed arias, but the theatrical framework of Adrian Noble's Alcina production offers a great deal.

Excellent playing from Les Musiciens du Louvre and a mixed vocal performance are matched by a staging by Ivan Alexandre likely to be controversial.

Kristine Opolais may not pass so easily for an oriental 15 year old, but her Cio-Cio San deftly avoids Titipu stereotypes.

Vienna State Opera's traditional production of Carmen managed to create an evening of both sumptious music and exciting drama on stage.

Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s impressive conducting, Tomasz Konieczny’s tortured Telramund and the Chor der Wiener Staatsoper save this performance of  Lohengrin from becoming an ignominious swan song.

Any production of Le nozze di Figaro in which both Marcellina and Barbarina give star performances is ensemble casting at its finest.

Strauss' penultimate opera is treated to a lavish if superficial staging at the Salzburg Festival, but the real rewards come from the musical performance of this unjustly neglected work.

A starrily cast performance of Puccini's early opera transcended the limitations of concert presentation to provide a very moving and musically rewarding account of the drama.

Too many paparazzi and not enough Puccini in Robert Carsen’s Manon Lescaut in Vienna.

Within Mozart’s Don Giovanni, the darkest corners of the soul are exposed by music, stirred up by the lying, lecherous exploits of the aristocratic scoundrel, Don Giovanni.

Nina Stemme leads a successful revival of the Schenk production with a brilliant orchestra led by a passionate Ádám Fischer.

Shadow puppet serpents and policemen in tutus: Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier's production of Die Zauberflöte is graced with a strong cast. 

Nina Stemmes' glorious Brünnhilde crowns a towering performance of Götterdämmerung at the Vienna State Opera. 

When Salzburg Festival director Alexander Pereira stepped onto the stage of the Großes Festspielhaus last night to announce that one of the cast members of La bohème was sick and unable to sing, he faced a chorus of hisses from the audience. Soprano Anna Netrebko, the festival’s biggest non-conductor star, was feeling fine (though as Mimì she would shortly die of consumption).

Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal began their collaboration on Die Frau ohne Schatten (The Woman Without a Shadow) with utopian ambitions. Unfortunately they weren’t the same ones. For Hofmannsthal, this would finally be the opera where his poetry would be illuminated by rather than buried under the music.

Stephen Gould und Krassimira Stoyanova triumphieren in einer unaufregenden Wohlfühlinszenierung von Adrian Noble.

Mit Piotr Beczała in der Titelrolle und Linda Watson als Ortrud ist eben auch manchmal das Unperfekte großartig.

Die Welturaufführung ist weder konfrontativ noch bringt sie neue Einsichten: überdrüber und doch irgendwie daneben.