Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Željko Lučić

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

The gambling tables and neon lights of Las Vegas might not be the images which immediately enter your head when you think of Verdi’s Rigoletto, but bold art is often created and progressed by the pushing of boundaries and by challenging audiences to reimagine the familiar.

The Met revived Jurgen Flimm's modern production of Salome, with Patricia Racette making a successfu last minute role debut in the title role.

Francesco Meli asserts his credentials as one of the top tenors singing Manrico; David Bösch's staging lacks attention to detail.

Little mark of Shakespeare's drama or Verdi's passion behind Bartlett Sher's exsanguinated, highly-stylized Otello for The Metropolitan Opera.

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.

Bartlett Sher’s new production of Verdi's Otello opens the Metropolitan Opera's season in a staging dominated by multimedia sets.

Six years after its contested 2009 world première at the Metropolitan Opera, Luc Bondy's disputed production of Giacomo Puccini's Tosca bowed its third Teatro alla Scala staging here on Monday night.

Verdi’s Aida has been performed over 1,000 times at the Metropolitan Opera, making it the most commonly revived work after Puccini’s La bohème. Because Aida is so regularly programmed, I usually walk rather than run to see this opera.

A triumphant opening night was crowned by superb performances from Željko Lučić and Anna Netrebko as Macbeth and his Lady. But why the negative audience reaction to Adrian Noble's intelligent production? 

A modern, simple production of Simon Boccanegra at Dresden's Semperoper, doesn’t interfere with the action.  

Andrea Chénier can seem more a series of scenes than a dramatic whole and it relies on exciting, charismatic luminaries to hold it together and keep the interest high. This revival of Nicolas Joël’s staging is a noble effort, but disappoints.

OK, opera fans: anyone out there tired of being confronted with provocative modern interpretations of beloved operas? If so, this Tosca production is just what the doctor ordered.Set, costume and direction all work together in this classic 1958 production to create the impression of Puccini’s turn-of-the-century masterpiece as it was originally intended.

Verdi’s Rigoletto is possessed of a truly tragic plot. A physically disabled jester keeps his innocent daughter locked up except for weekly church visits, a situation which she only lightly resists. Rigoletto believes a curse is to blame for his daughter being killed, although she only dies as a substitute for the man Rigoletto himself has arranged to be assassinated.

The first opera of the season at La Scala is an event of huge cultural significance in Italy, so it raised some hackles when, for Giuseppe Verdi’s centenary year, the management passed over Verdi in favour of Wagner’s Lohengrin. But even Italians disappointed by the insult to their culture found it impossible to quarrel with the quality of the singing talent on show.

The Metropolitan Opera’s Live in HD simulcasts to movie theaters all over the world have been one of the biggest stories in the opera world in recent years and an undoubted hit with opera fans. Whether the program’s audience-building potential is commensurate with its box office hauls, however, is still a matter of debate.

A mid-19th-century Italian opera with the sound of the human voice front-and-center, and seemingly dependent on the trappings of the theater.

Mise en abyme du drame qui conduira Rigoletto à vivre errant comme un défunt, cette production mise en scène par Claus Guth et portée par une distribution vocale très juste s'avère tout aussi saissisante qu'étonnantament lumineuse dans ce qu'elle révèle pourtant de plus sombre des affects humains.

Željko Lučić als Gast zu Haus: Wieder singt er eine hinreißende Partie an der Oper Frankfurt.

L'Opéra National de Paris clôture sa Trilogie Populaire de Verdi avec une Traviata théâtralement bien pauvre. 

In Frankfurt war er mit Puccinis Il trittico dank einer musikalisch ausgefeilten und szenisch-psychologisch stimmigen Präsentation garantiert.