Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Teatro Real

John Adams’ opera about Richard Nixon’s historic meeting with Mao Tse-Tung is performed with all round excellence, with a real find on the podium in the shape of Olivia Lee-Gunderman.

In this historic reopening, Lisette Oropesa offers a magnificent performance, dramatically overwhelming and vocally very unique.

The Teatros del Canal host the Benjamin–Crimp partnership’s thrillingly dark, lyric retelling of Robert Browning’s famous 1842 poem The Pied Piper of Hamelin by La Veronal dance company.

Comedy fails to spark in Laurent Pelly's new production of Falstaff at the Teatro Real. 

Raquel García-Tomás's new chamber opera is a mild comedy about narcissism, brought to life by a clever production and a strong cast.

Carsen's scaled-down Ring makes a timely comeback with a melancholy message of decay.

Kaija Saariaho's delightful but unchallenging fourth opera comes to Madrid with the same crew of the world première and Davone Tines, Philippe Jaroussky and Nora Kimball-Mentzos in the leading roles

Despite a great cast led by Marina Rebeka, La Fura dels Baus's unambitious approach to the myth of Faust and Dan Ettinger's noisy conducting prevent a brighter season opening at the Teatro Real.

Javier Camarena’s debut as Edgardo contributed to a triumphal night at the Teatro Real together with Lisette Oropesa’s charismatic Lucia and David Alden’s powerful staging.

Ivor Bolton and David McVicar have teamed up to create an unapologetically Brittenian Gloriana, with Anna Caterina Antonacci at the top of a great cast

In a disappointing revival of Hugo de Ana's clichéd and clumsy production, Liudmyla Monastyrska and Violeta Urmana confronted each other with their superb vocal techniques and diverging styles.

Weill's neglected "American Opera" opens in Madrid with a refurbished production by John Fulljames and a strong cast led by Patricia Racette.

Jake Heggie's story of redemption captivated the Teatro Real audience thanks to a solid cast and an effective production

Jamie Barton stole the show in a lacklustre concert performance in Madrid.

The Teatro Real opened its 200th anniversary season with a revival of Claus Guth's brilliant production and a great cast, led by Kurt Streit and Silvia Tro Santafé.

Spanish composer Elena Mendoza presents a hermetic piece of contemporary theatre that is at the same time a disappointing opera and a worthy musical exploration of literary universe of Juan Carlos Onetti

Billy Budd triumphs in Madrid thanks to an inspired orchestra, a solid cast and a dream team of stage magicians.

Livermore turns Norma into a dubious tribute to fantasy B-movies but Gregory Kunde and Karine Deshayes come to the rescue.

A lacklustre season opening at Teatro Real proves once again the elusive nature of Verdi's masterpiece.

Romeo Castellucci's captivating Moses und Aron was a major success, a bold reminder of the boundless power of opera.

Kasper Holten's new production fails to convince about the alleged virtues of Wagner's outcast comic opera.

In the opening night of Teatro Real's new season, Mariella Devia proved why she is one of the best bel canto singers of the last decades.

A series of cancellations resulted in an unusual triple bill: a rare Spanish opera, an impromptu concert by Plácido Domingo and Woody Allen's brilliant Gianni Schicchi.

Adrianne Pieczonka and Anett Fritsch shone in an otherwise disappointing opening night, impaired by poor conducting and unimpressive staging.

Routine took hold of the Teatro Real in its production of La traviata, despite baritone Juan Jesús Rodríguez's best efforts.

Mauricio Sotelo's world première based on El Público, a fascinating surrealist play by Federico García Lorca, mixed flamenco and tragedy to achieve a great night of opera. 

Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette attracted a large audience for a concert performance from Madrid, enticed by Roberto Alagna's Roméo.

Death in Venice makes its première in Madrid with a rational and symbolic production by Willy Decker. 

Donizetti's La Fille du régiment brings much needed joy to the Teatro Real, with Javier Camarena's astonishing voice and Aleksandra Kurzak's unapologetic tomboy mesmerising the audience.

A classical setting and a varying degree of vocal and dramatic success for Mozart's miraculous score to Le nozze di Figaro.

A concert of many virtues, laying bare Verdi's music only made it better. James Conlon conducts I vespri siciliani in Madrid.

With this mesmerising version of Les contes d'Hoffmann, Marthaler has proved (as Offenbach did more than one century ago) that it is possible to love Romanticism through its satire. 

Good versus evil, only evil wins. Wagner's Lohengrin fills the Madrid night with questions about what trust is and what it takes to maintain it.

With this new production of Gluck's Alceste in Madrid, Krzysztof Warlikowski uses a well known popular icon to drag the audience into a two-way process of dramatic exploration.

Annie Proulx's love story between two men in rural Wyoming sees its opera première. Strong casting and an irregular score turn Spain into the capital of the opera.

Video artist Bill Viola fills Tristan und Isolde with mesmerising images. Peter Sellars stages and Marc Piollet conducts a cast where King Marke reigns, at the Teatro Real in Madrid.

The Madrid opera house ends the year with a production of Donizetti's L'Elisir d'Amore from Damiano Michieletto, transporting the action to a noisy Mediterranean beach.

“Music of doubt, music of questions, music of search”. This is how Peter Sellars, the stage director for this production of The Indian Queen, sees the music of Purcell in general and this piece in particular. Sellars has reportedly wanted to present his take on this semi-opera for decades. Finally, the Teatro Real, Perm Opera and English National Opera have joined forces to make it a reality.

The inability of human beings to communicate or even empathise, and the monstrous consequences that gap in misunderstanding leads to, is the foundational idea of Die Eroberung von Mexico, and Wolfgang Rihm’s dense and frequently brilliant music.

The opening of the Teatro Real’s season in Madrid has been anything but uneventful. However, Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia, the ever-pleasing opera chosen to welcome back an expectant audience, had very little to do with it.

El reto Tristan und Isolde, en versión semiescenificada en el Teatro Real, logró alcanzar el éxtasis musical en una velada que arrancó largas ovaciones y vítores.

La nariz nos ofrece la oportunidad de reflexionar en clave irónica sobre la creación en su contexto histórico, las vanguardias, la política, la sociedad y la filosofía.

El Teatro Real revive el Achille in Sciro con una excelente producción a cargo de la directora de escena Mariame Clément y el director musical Ivor Bolton.

Arabella triunfa en el Teatro Real bajo la dirección de Christof Loy y David Afkham.

Blanca Li propone una puesta en escena crepuscular, intensa y claroscural en la nueva producción de Dido y Aeneas.

Nadine Sierra ofrece una interpretación en la que uno tiene la sospecha de que estar asistiendo a un evento casi histórico, y que puede ser recordada como uno de los hitos vocales en la historia del coliseo madrileño.

Jessica Pratt es la protagonista indiscutible del segundo reparto de La sonnambula en el Teatro Real.

La meticulosa dirección de García Alarcón y la cuidada propuesta de Sasha Waltz redundan en un espectáculo en el que la centralidad de la música se ve reforzada por una coreografía que construye el espacio y las relaciones entre personajes.

Una noche que comenzó llena de excesos y defectos, pero creció hasta un desenlace redondo.