Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Russell Braun

The COC’s revival of The Magic Flute is mostly played for laughs and makes an enjoyable, if undemanding, evening.

In the expert hands of both director Warlikowski and conductor Kent Nagano, the sequel to Bernstein's Trouble in Tahiti proves to be even darker and more dramatic.

Leaving unresolved loose ends aside and viewed from a child’s perspective, Joel Ivany’s new Hänsel und Gretel at the Canadian Opera Company it’s a fun night at the opera.

Spano marshaled the vast forces with sensitive balance in many moments. But the difficulty of achieving a proper blend amidst the thick timbral texture prevented the performance from reaching transcendence.

Despite an abundance of incongruous symbols, this Toronto performance was remarkable for its outstanding singing.

Britten's profoundly pacifist work is given a calm reading by Peter Oundjian and the RSNO: soprano Erin Wall, the RSNO Junior Chorus and the wind players provide the high spots of the evening.

In this concert, conducted by Simone Young, featuring works by Hungarians, Bartók and Eötvös,  the colour and virtuosity of both pieces was presented with an extra tingle factor.

Oramo and the BBCSO were dynamic in the UK première of Brett Dean's thought-provoking suite and provided a solid account of Richard Strauss' Ein Heldenleben.

Kent Nagano and OSM wowed with cerebral approach to Carmina Burana.

The OSM closes out the 2015-16 season with all guns blazing and an ethereal flag of peace in a splendid battle of Britten.

The two leads in the brand-new cast of the Met’s three year old production of Massenet’s Manon were unbeatable. 

With smart direction, elegant design, and vocal fireworks, the Canadian Opera Company's Roberto Devereux offers a complex portrait of a much-loved historical figure.

Offenbach’s wrongfully neglected masterpiece has returned to us at last, thanks to the concerted efforts of Opera Rara, the Orchestra of the Age of the Enlightenment and Sir Mark Elder; and, above all, because of the tireless, lifelong devotion of one man: Jean-Christophe Keck.

Conflict across the world pours into our homes through the immediacy of television, and we can now see harrowing images unavailable when Britten took up the commission to write a piece for the consecration of the rebuilt Coventry Cathedral in 1961/62.

The newly built and unconventionally imposing Coventry Cathedral, built next to the ruins of the original medieval building destroyed in the Second World War, played host to the first performance of Britten’s War Requiem in 1962.

What do you get when you have a woman being burnt on the stake and her daughter tosses a baby – the wrong baby – on the pyre? The correct answer is Giuseppe Verdi’s incredible melodrama Il Trovatore.The Canadian Opera Company’s production (borrowed from Opéra de Marseille) eschews melodramatic displays but does provide some thrills.

Read our review of Peter Sellars' production of Nixon in China by John Adams, in its 2011 broadcast from the Met Opera in New York.

Read our review of Des McAnuff's production of Faust by Gounod, in its 2011 broadcast from the Met Opera in New York.

Read our review of John Cox's production of Strauss­' Capriccio in its 2011 broadcast from the Met Opera in New York.

La mise en scène de Dmitri Tcherniakov portait de belles promesses, comme la direction musicale de Thomas Hengelbrock... Hélas, l'ensemble du projet a pris l'eau en même temps que l'arrivée de la pluie.

Mit einer grandiosen Inzenierung ist Der Besuch der alten Dame ein spannender Beitrag zum 100. Geburtstag von Gottfried von Einem.