Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Daniel Sumegi

The tireless Stefan Vinke wows in the title role of Opera Australia's Siegfried, in a production which harnesses technology to excellent effect.

The second part of Opera Australia's Ring Cycle sees digital effects employed with greater restraint, delivering a production that is by turns moving and thrilling. 

The opening Opera Australia's much-delayed Ring cycle contains wonderful visuals, and a standout performance from Warwick Fyfe as Alberich, but also moments of bafflement and excess.

Sydney may possess the most iconic opera house in the world, but Opera Australia ventured outdoors once more for a successful rock 'n' roll-themed Carmen on Cockatoo Island, with a stage positioned at water's edge.

Star tenor Jonas Kaufmann sings the title role in Olivier Py's dour and symbolism-heavy Lohengrin, set in post-war Berlin.

Role and production debuts in no way diminished the psychological impact of this intense hour with Bartók and Balázs.

Good-time girl, hometown sweetheart, torn-apart lover, smugglers and rivals, familiar songs, a cliffhanger of a tale. 

Having offered a strong feminist reading of Wagner's Ring, could Kasper Holten do the same again for Die Meistersinger? Opera Australia's co-production had moments of excellence, but ultimately left the viewer with more questions than answers

Francesca Zambello's hip-hop graffiti staging of Aida comes to Seattle. 

Seattle Opera's visually poetic and refined Madama Butterfly peeks back at Puccini's own first version of the opera, which was arguably more openly critical of the devastation wrought by imperialism. 

The final instalment of the Melbourne Ring is vividly brought to life by excellent singing, an adaptable set, and committed playing from the pit.

The revival of Neil Armfield's Melbourne Ring is relaunched with a successful Rheingold, sensitively conducted by Pietari Inkinen, with an especially fine performance from Warwick Fyfe as Alberich.

Christopher Alden's risk-taking, Expressionist-tinged production of the early Wagner breakthrough is provocative in all the right ways.

A relative rarity by Verdi is given an outing at the Sydney Opera House, with excellent performances let down by a disappointing staging. 

Beautiful sets and a fine cast led by Guillaume Tourniaire can't quite compensate for the dramatic weaknesses in Opera Australia's new production of Bizet's Les pêcheurs de perles.

Julie Taymor's production maintains the magic of The Magic Flute at Sydney Opera House. 

An exciting cast starring Michael Fabiano and Leah Crocetto makes up for a slow and static production at San Francisco Opera's opening night.

Giuseppe Verdi’s Don Carlos has finally arrived, for the first time in the 21st century, as a much anticipated highlight of Opera Australia’s current season. 

Director Andrejs Zagars went for a multimedia presentation of Salome modernised to the 20th century, which had its moments, but left serious questions about deviations from Strauss’ score built around Oscar Wilde’s play unanswered.

“It is not his trial, it is mine, mine. It is I whom the devil awaits.” Richard Croft's Vere leads an outstanding cast in LA Opera's revival of Billy Budd.

Wagner famously idealized the concept of the “Gesamtkunstwerk”, a total work of art that incorporates many artistic media into a single piece. He would have appreciated Seattle Opera’s production of Götterdämmerung.

Seattle Opera’s Siegfried takes place in familiar territory. Mime lives in the part of the forest where the gods roamed in Das Rheingold, and the dragon has made its lair where Hunding and Siegmund fought in Die Walküre (there’s even a bloodstain on the rock, which the Wanderer touches regretfully).

Some Ring cycles are based on ideological concepts; Seattle Opera’s current Ring cycle is based on a place. That place is the Pacific Northwest of the United States, home to such extraordinary natural beauty that stage director Stephen Wadsworth has deemed it fit for the gods.

The older I get, the more convinced I become that the heart of Mozart’s genius is to be found in his operas. This is no truer than in Don Giovanni, especially when performed by such a talented cast as it was last night in Sydney Opera House, three hours of the most sublime music. I have always believed that great music does not need any gimmicks and should be able to stand on its own.

As the curtain rises at the beginning of Act I, we are greeted with violent flashes of light, rocks strewn across the stage and the witches almost slithering among the rocks, as they make their prophecies to Macbeth that he will eventually become King, prompting him and Lady Macbeth in their murderous, Machiavellian pursuit of power.