Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Evan Hughes

What does opera in the 21st century look and sound like? Streets removed from anything Mozart, Verdi or Wagner would have recognised. But Salvatore Sciarrino is his own man.

Taking snapshots from 1806 and 1807, the BBC Philharmonic present two works from Beethoven’s middle period, with high musical standards and the Dresden Chamber Choir on superb form.

Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, Semele willingly pays the price of death through transformation. 

Lawrence Cummings conducts Zurich’s Orchestra La Scintilla in Handel’s oratorio-cum-opera, Belshazzar. The music was celestial; the staging was a bombastic mix of excess and vaudeville.

The director's world-renowned 1991 conception of Benjamin Britten's 1960 operaA Midsummer Night's Dream finally makes it to America. 

With a semi-staged production, directed by Benjamin Davis, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra has also been bringing George Benjamin's opera to concert hall audiences.

Handel’s Semele is presented as a flashback at the Komische Oper in Berlin. 

Virtuoso modern stagecraft and a fine cast combine in a very enjoyable, present-day Rake’s Progress.

Boston Lyric Opera’s production of Le nozze di Figaro boasted a young, capable, and energetic cast, a lively staging, and an intimate venue to put it all across. 

Revel with a naughty Don Giovanni at the Komische Opera in Berlin.

James Levine led the MET Chamber Ensemble through a remarkable performance of Carter's The American Sublime, whose scattered yet distinct clouds of sound evoked the warmth, irony, and philosophical musings of the texts.

Die Dirigentin Emmanuelle Haïm und die Regisseurin Jetske Mijnssen ziehen am gleichen Strick und lassen Rameaus Platée sowohl als musikalische als auch theatralische Komödie erscheinen. 

Stefan Herheim legt Händels Oratorium ins Wiener Café Central – verführerisch wie die Kuchenvitrine.

En création mondiale au Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, Il viaggio, Dante du compositeur français échoue à transmettre la dimension poétique de l'œuvre originelle et bascule dans des ressorts psychologiques dignes d'une série TV.