Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Caroline Chaney

David Pountney completes his “Verdi trilogy” for the company but although his staging has fluidity, it lacks an explosive ending... and the vocal performances disappoint. 

Welsh National Opera brought a cast of strong voices to Birmingham for a production of Rigoletto intriguingly set in the White House of the 1960s. 

A strong cast take us to the brink of damnation in Welsh National Opera’s revival of Don Giovanni.

The cavernous Mayflower pit eats singers for breakfast and only Natalya Romaniw’s full-blooded Tatyana escaped its jaws unmarked

Lothar Koenigs conducts a stylish, colourful Magic Flute inspired by Magritte. 

35 years and many revivals after it was first seen, the late Joachim Herz’s version of Madam Butterfly (“Madama” spelt without the “a” here) is still going. For WNO’s themed series of “Free Spirits”, Caroline Chaney took on the revival director’s mantle. The result was a reliable production lacking in originality but not in warmth.