Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Yannick Nézet-Séguin

A program that didn't look too exciting on paper was made special by an outstanding interpretation. 

Yannick Nézet-Séguin led an intriguing performance of Wagner's Flying Dutchman at the Met with a superb orchestra and an excellent ensemble of singers. 

Jan Lisiecki displays total control in Chopin, troublesome acoustics mar Bernstein and Rachmaninov.

The Philadelphia Orchestra presented an exciting and fresh performance of Swan Lake selections and Bluebeard's Castle, led by its energetic music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin.

Nezet-Seguin and his Philadelphians convey the brilliance and sophistication of France's undisputed "golden age" of classical music with works by six Parisian composers.

Shostakovich proves the highlight of a variable programme in Rotterdam. 

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.

Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducted his hometown Orchestre Métropolitain in a concert Hollywood couldn’t have scripted better nor the Cirque du Soleil made more fantastic. 

With exceptional nuance, lead flautist Juliette Hurel demonstrated her Olympian skills in Bruno Mantovani's technically exhausting, often violent work. With the flute in mind, Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s wildly upbeat Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony in C-minor ‘Titan’ made for new discoveries in Bruckner.

Melody and rhythm in abundance, with compelling performances from soloist and orchestra alike.

There may be little profound to say in Dvořák’s Sixth Symphony, but that didn’t stop Nézet-Séguin and the LPO telling it most beguilingly. 

Opéra de Montréal's belated première of Strauss' take on the Greek tragedy is worth the wait, as soprano Lise Lindstrom and wunderkind conductor Yannick Nézét-Séguin lead an exciting, music-driven production.

Impressively, Principal Conductor Nézet-Séguin matched his predecessor, Valery Gergiev, with such high quality Russian repertoire. 

In Rotterdam, Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts a gracefully contoured Beethoven Sixth Symphony and, together with fabulous vocal and instrumental soloists, reaches core-deep into Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde.

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

Musical Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin inspired wonderful performances from the American players on the last leg of their European tour. 

In front of an enthusiastic Montréal crowd, Yannick Nézet-Séguin led his orchestra through the varied atmospheres and moods of works by great English composers of the early 20th century.

Great singing from veterans and some visually stunning effects light up the Met's revival of Hytner's 2010 production of Verdi's Don Carlo.

Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the Rotterdam Philharmonic brought a colorful and exciting program to Hill Auditorium, Detroit.

Hélène Grimaud, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, and the Rotterdam Philharmonic impress in a colourful programme of 20th century gems. 

The Orchestre Metropolitain’s Scandinavian Escape brought to mind the warmth and familiarity of home in this Sunday concert. 

Lars Vogt, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, and the London Philharmonic Orchestra bring freshness to a programme of German classics. 

In the spirit of Hallowe'en, Mahler’s Second Symphony focuses on the idea of Zombification; however, any mention of eating brains didn’t pass Mahler’s final edits. 

The final performance of Yannick Nézet-Séguin's Brahms cycle with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra is decent, but falls short of the excellence of the other three symphonies he performed. 

Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts the Rotterdam Philharmonic in an upbeat rendition of Mahler's “Tragic” Sixth Symphony.

Conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin invokes an unattainable glimpse of heaven in a uniquely crafted Verdi Requiem. 

Lisa Batiashvili joins the Philadelphia Orchestra and Yannick Nézet-Séguin for smooth, suave Bartók, but Bruckner's Ninth doesn't quite cohere.

Nicholas Angelich's Mendelssohn Piano Concerto reaches places that Nézet-Séguin's and the LPO's Mahler Ninth at the Royal Festival Hall rarely touched. 

Yannick Nézet-Séguin explores the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s palette in an intoxicating French programme, celebrating the restoration of the Royal Festival Hall’s organ. 

An honest and subtle performance from Barbara Hannigan in the Dutch première of Hans Abrahamsen’s song cycle which tells Ophelia's story. 

The Philadelphia Orchestra doesn’t look much different from any other orchestra, but their most recent program at Carnegie Hall with conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin produced at times unbelievable sounds.

Yannick Nézet-Séguin kept the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra sounding especially lively and cohesive in this revival of Otto Schenk's enchanting production of Rusalka, starring Renée Fleming as the water nymph and Piotr Beczala as her lover.

Marie-Nicole Lemieux and Yannick Nézet-Séguin score personal triumphs with l’Orchestre Métropolitain in their first concert together in thirteen years.

Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s return to the London Philharmonic, of which he is the Guest Principal Conductor, was as usual greeted with a full and enthusiastic concert hall. His strengths in the French repertoire and choral music made him the perfect conductor for an evening of music by Dutilleux and Shostakovich, whose Tout un monde lointain and Symphony no.

The early 1950s were marked by the world premières of Prokofiev’s Symphony no. 7 (1952), Poulenc’s Piano Concerto (1950) as well as his Stabat Mater (1951). The most recent offering of The Rest is Noise series at the Southbank Centre encouraged us to place these pieces not just in the 1950s, but also in a wider political and cultural context.

Conductor and wunderkind Yannick Nézet-Séguin returned home to Montreal to lauch the 33rd season of L’Orchestre Métropolitain with a concert dedicated to compositions written or created a century ago in 1913.

The Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra's arrival at the Proms with their musical director Yannick Nézet-Séguin was popular, selling out seats and drawing a full arena crowd. There was an atmosphere of anticipation for a famously enigmatic conductor and a colourful programme. The concert didn’t disappoint with its marriage of Tchaikovsky and Wanger, and the cryptic Symphony No.

If you were to measure the potency of this afternoon’s concert of Verdi’s Requiem by the sheer number of grown men weeping at the end, I’d say it was an unparalleled success. In fact, after that grandiose musical testament, operatic in scope, the applause was nearly endless and every soul in the hall rose to stand.

Montreal’s favourite musical son has become something of a world favourite in recent years. The Music Director of both the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, Yannick Nézet-Séguin is also Principal Guest Conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the Principal Conductor of his native city’s Orchestre Métropolitain.

Poor Ravel. He was expelled from the Conservatoire; he was consistently rejected for the Prix de Rome; he never married. Along with his contemporaries Stravinsky, Debussy and Satie, he made enormous strides in 20th-century music, but is unfortunately remembered best (when at all) for the plodding fifteen minutes of his 1928 composition Boléro.

In an interview with Charlie Rose a couple of years ago, Sir Simon Rattle made the startling comment that conductors only become “competent” after they turn 60.

L’Orchestre Métropolitain is playing four concerts with two programs this week, splitting their time between Montréal and Verdun, a marathon which is to culminate in recording sessions. With such a hefty schedule the orchestra might have chosen light repertoire, but valiantly did the opposite, programming symphonies by Mahler and Bruckner.

Aaron Copland was one of the most important American composers of the last century. The inclusion of his Clarinet Concerto and Dvořák’s Symphony no. 9 made this program one inspired by the US. The theme of this year’s Rotterdam Philharmonic Gergiev Festival, Sea & You, of course suits this beautifully – after all, we hear the skyscrapers coming up from the sea in Dvořák’s symphony.

Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s love for Brahms is well-documented, which makes the Rotterdam Philharmonic’s season opening at the Concertgebouw all the more fitting. In a program of Brahms’s First and Second Symphonies, they showed once again why they’re an orchestra to be reckoned with.

A concert made up entirely of Brahms symphonies is not such a common thing, but the Orchestre Metropolitain offered one tonight, as the first installment of their Brahms weekend. It was a concert in the old Viennese tradition, from a time when concerts often featured multiple symphonies.

Classical music is often portayed as being very serious, which is part of what makes it seem inaccessible at times. But this is a mistake: there are plenty of pieces that are, in a word, fun.

Most of Dvořák's ten operas are rarely performed, but Rusalka, his tragic fairy tale of the water nymph who takes human form, has become popular in recent years and is a regular visitor to British opera houses. Last night's production, by directors Jossi Wieler and Sergio Morabito, started life at the 2008 Salzburg festival and has now arrived in Covent Garden.

Before the concert began, Yannick Nézet-Séguin gave a short introductory speech that, in effect, would have the Royal Festival Hall consecrated for the evening as a place of worship.

Ravel is one of those composers who seem to slip through the cracks sometimes. I myself am guilty of letting this happen – I know that I like Ravel’s music but often forget how magical it really is. After tonight’s concert, however, I am sure that I’ll never forget this again.

Montreal loves Yannick. Many in tonight’s audience were on their feet the moment he walked into the concert hall. Last year L’Orchestre Metropolitain released their season booklet in which half of the pages were filled with the same image of the maestro, each one elaborately ornamented with neo-Baroque complexity.