Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Kristian Benedikt

The Llangollen International Eistedffod opens with a star-studded concert performance of Puccni's political/romantic thriller.  

This double cast, nine-day revival of Vadim Milkov's staging of Pique Dame offers a relatively straight reading of Tchaikovsky's opera about the obsessive Pushkin-based character Herman. Embracing the opera's choral and dance passages, spectacle and pageantry are paramount; the drama's surreal and more nuanced dimensions could have been better profiled.

An impressive trio of international singers carry Opéra de Montréal's traditional new production of this Verdi tragedy.

Dirk Kaftan am Pult des Grazer Philharmonischen Orchesters und Gal James als grandiose Desdemona trotzten szenischer Spannungslosigkeit und sorgten für eine hörenswerte Vorstellung.