Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Michael Yeargan

This irresistible Nutcracker is a reliable delight in an increasingly unreliable world.

Three major Metropolitan Opera debuts bring excitement and vocal glamour to this revival of Bartlett Sher's Rigoletto production.

Gorgeous sets and costumes aren't quite enough to make this La traviata revival sparkle.

The Norwegian soprano is acclaimed at the Met in Richard Strauss' mash-up of commedia dell'arte and tragic opera. 

Verdi's Rigoletto in Weimar Germany? A half-baked concept, but Bartlett Sher's new production is certainly dramatic and it is gorgeously sung. 

With Tchaikovsky’s dear, familiar overture, the reassuring sameness of Wendall K Harrington’s slide show projecting 1915 San Francisco scenes onto the curtains, we were all, most decisively, back. 

James Robinson’s production allows the large cast of Catfish Row to interact like the old pals – almost family – that they are.

In Helgi Tomasson's production, Michael Yeargan’s scenic design and the late Martin Pakledinaz’ sumptuous costumes create a scene so charming, you just want to climb inside and stay in that world all evening and beyond.

The Met’s new production is directed by James Robinson, who has the characters interacting and listening to one another as if in real life – the inhabitants of Catfish Row have known each other for all of their lives and love, pray and grieve like family.

Nadine Sierra's Gilda is the highlight of Michael Sher's polished production, which doesn't quite tug at the heartstrings.

A much-loved 1991 production evoking Fellini’s post-war glamour and grime is revived with three talented young principals, including Mongolian baritone Amartuvshin Enkhbat in the title role.

The real triumph of Michael Fabiano's role debut as Werther lay in controlling the bold intensity of his voice in favour of a sweet and lower-key level of passion – a match for Massenet's frequent choice of the cello.

An impressively cast revival for Verdi's one-time neglected masterpiece at Covent Garden.

Porgy and Bess isn’t a perfect opera, but English National Opera's new production is a strong one. 

The world is gloriously redeemed in the gripping final installment of San Francisco Opera's Ring cycle.

Both the technical effects and the singing impress in San Francisco Opera's dark Siegfried.

San Francisco Opera's Die Walküre overcame a disappointing first act, winning the audience over with excellent singing and playing and impressive stage effects.

At San Francisco Opera, conductor Donald Runnicles and a top-notch cast deliver a delicious Rheingold in Francesca Zambello's colorful production.

Francesca Zambello's hip-hop graffiti staging of Aida comes to Seattle. 

Bartlett Sher's production of Gounod's Romeo et Juliette returns to the Met. 

The quality cast purred, but glorious roars are required to jolt audiences from placid enjoyment of Opera Australia’s gorgeous 24-year-old production of this Verdi classic.

The Lyric Opera’s new production of Rigoletto evokes visually the contours and high-contrast relief of a surrealist painting. 

Bartlett Sher's production of The Tales of Hoffmann, revived at The Met, takes a Kafka-esque, surreal view of the opera.

If you love Verdi's inventive music, enjoy fabulous male voices in particular, and appreciate great opera conducting with exquisitely sensitive orchestral playing – then this Rigoletto is a must.

Vittorio Grigòlo and Diana Damrau repeated and cemented their intense on-stage relationship at the Met in Bartlett Sher's new production of Roméo et Juliette.

Welsh National Opera may have reached the ripe old age of seventy but it's very much alive and kicking.

Tonight’s Götterdämmerung brought the cycle to a fitting – and wholly American – conclusion. 

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

Zambello's Die Walküre engages and excites in this promising Ring cycle. 

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

A revival of Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore at the Met, where Vittorio Grigolo's Nemorino happily ignores most of Bartless Sher's subtexts. 

If the production is full of pleasures, they do not immediately or obviously connect to a sense of some larger plan, which might have been helped along with a more dynamic set.

A well-worked revival of Elijah Moshinsky's production of Rossini's Barber of Seville offers gales of laughter and vocal delights at the Sydney Opera House, with starring roles for Paolo Bordogna, Anna Dowsley and Warwick Fyfe

The Lyric Opera put together the best-sounding première of the year so far, in which singers, chorus and the orchestra all began with astonishing confidence and only improved from there.

WNO integrate dance and song to capture the soul of Carmen for the opening of their 60th anniversary season. 

An exciting cast starring Michael Fabiano and Leah Crocetto makes up for a slow and static production at San Francisco Opera's opening night.

Plush costumes and lavish sets make up for shortfall in music and singing in Opera Australia’s La traviata. 

Great singing and acting from the Met's Tales of Hoffmann second cast. 

The Metropolitan Opera’s five-year old production of Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann returned to the repertoire with a remarkable undertaking of the title role by Vittorio Grigolo.

There’s nothing like a trip to The Barber to refresh you. This season, the Metropolitan Opera revives Bartlett Sher’s 2006 production of Rossini’s comic masterpiece, The Barber of Seville. 

San Francisco Opera's thoughtful version of the 1955 opera Susannah, one of the most performed American operas, placing the story of Susannah and the Elders in the Appalachian hills of the 1930s. 

Last night’s Covent Garden revival of Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra was a study in time slips. On stage, there is the 25 year slip between the end of the prologue, when Simon is named Doge of Genoa, and the dramatic events of Act I. There is the 24 year gap between the disastrous première of the original opera and the triumph of the heavily revised 1881 version.

The devil, they say, has all the best lines. In yesterday's performance of Verdi's Otello at the Met, the villain was simply sensational. Falk Struckmann's delivery of Jago's Credo in un Dio crudel (“I believe in a cruel God”) was a masterpiece of nihilism, combining power and richness of voice with a tone of pure, matter of fact evil.

Eric Owens singt Porgy mit Leib und Seele und ist mit seiner charismatischen Ausstrahlung der unbestrittene Held dieser Oper.