Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Soloman Howard

Sir David McVicar's classic staging of The Magic Flute, now over 20 years old, shines afresh in a stylish performance conducted by Marie Jacquot, making her Covent Garden debut.  

The latest, thrilling instalment of Barrie Kosky's Ring cycle at Covent Garden does not have to strain for contemporary relevance. 

An evocative reading of Tippett's early masterpiece sits proudly alongside a blistering performance of Beethoven's lasting gift to the world. 

This revival of the company’s 2019 Weimar-inspired staging of Verdi’s heartbreaking masterpiece is distinguished by stylish singing. 

Through brilliant singing and layered acting, Javier Camarena, Mané Galoyan, and Igor Golovatenko drive a Rigoletto to warm a traditionalist's heart. 

An outstanding choral performance by nearly 300 singers of the BBC National Chorus of Wales and the Crouch End Festival Chorus lights up Verdi’s hybrid of opera and devotional music.

The first new Forza at the Met for nearly 30 years is lustily sung, led by Norwegian soprano, Lise Davidsen, and Igor Golovatenko as her vengeful brother. 

The first instalment of Covent Garden's new Ring is excellent all round from orchestra and voices, with Barrie Kosky providing plenty of ideas to tease us as to how the cycle will continue. 

Robert Carsen's Aida focusses on the brutality of war, with powerful lead performances from Angel Blue, SeokJong Baek and Elīna Garanča, plus strong orchestral colours from Sir Mark Elder.

This is an Aida for the 21st century, with many pertinent things to say about oppression.

Verdi and Schiller lose out to Barbora Horáková in a new staging for English National Opera. 

A concert performance of Handel's not-quite-an-opera proves a hit on tour in New York. 

This revival of the Met's 30-year-old production of Aida had a disappointing debut in the title role but Dolora Zajick's reign as Amneris is still a force of nature.

In a disappointing revival of Hugo de Ana's clichéd and clumsy production, Liudmyla Monastyrska and Violeta Urmana confronted each other with their superb vocal techniques and diverging styles.

Despite a strong vocal and orchestral performance, David Hockney's sets are still the main draw for San Francisco Opera's Turandot. 

Francesca Zambello’s engaging Aida opened the season at Washington National Opera, eventually getting into its stride. 

The Metropolitan Opera’s now 29-year old production of Aida is still standing and still looking good. Gianni Quaranta’s gigantic sets – floor-to-sky-statuary, regal-looking staircases, a couple of horses, wise/exciting use of the stage elevator to change scenes (causing, unfortunately, a glitch the other night which delayed the final scene for a few minutes), costumes (by Dada Saligeri) mostly of

The return of the Met's Aida was a joyous celebration of the art form with excellent singers and orchestra doing what they do best against the backdrop of a traditional but effective staging.

In Ron Daniels' production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni at Santa Fe Opera, the specter of death and the possibility of judgment is always center stage. 

Santa Fe Opera presented Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette in Stephen Lawless’ mid 19th-century staging, a co-production with Barcelona's Liceu. Before the overture, General Director Charles MacKay came onstage to announce that Stephen Costello was ill and would be replaced by Joshua Guerrero, a graduate of the Los Angeles Opera Young Artist Program.

Zambello's Ring for the WNO continues to engage and impress. 

Das Rheingold stages flawed American Ambitions in the first Ring Cycle in Washington DC. 

A righteous, politically-relevant but musically questionable world premiere of Philip Glass' revised Appomattox.

Gustavo Dudamel conducts the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra in an "Immortal Beethoven" performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

Matthew Richard Martinez reviews Los Angeles Opera's season-opening performance of Verdi's La traviata starring Plácido Domingo, Nino Machaidze, and Arturo Chacón-Cruz.

The arrival of Show Boat at the Washington National Opera this month, after stops in Chicago and Houston, has provoked a certain amount of consternation in operatic circles.

On Wednesday night the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts was more crowded than a shopping mall during the holiday season. Apparently, nothing could keep DC opera lovers from getting to the Washington National Opera - not even the notorious peak hour traffic.It comes as no surprise that Mozart’s Don Giovanni, known to some as "the greatest opera ever written" is on most opera fans’ must-see lists.

Romeo Castellucci firma esta producción y capitanea una escenificación potente, incisiva, aunque poco emocional donde la archiconocida misa de difuntos transmuta a un canto por la celebración de la vida.

À la tête d'un Orchestre philharmonique de Rotterdam d'une cohésion irréprochable et aux côtés d'une distribution de grande qualité, le chef québécois a proposé une très belle version de concert du deuxième volet du Ring.

Menée par le trio Tézier-Kaufmann-Radvanovsky, une exécution musicale superbe confère à l'œuvre de Verdi toute l'émotion incandescente dont la prive singulièrement la mise en scène, signée Lotte de Beer.