Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Jennifer Wilson

Balázs Kovalik's new dystopian Turandot is musically rousing but let down by a production that's more 1970s TV series than slick modern sci-fi. 

Given the spate of visually distracting, if not irksome productions which seem to blight the opera world these days, there is something to be said for concert performances.

An uneven yet unforgettable performance, thanks to conductor Jaap van Zweden’s seductive colouring of the score and Jennifer Wilson’s refulgent Isolde.

Roberto De Simone's staging evokes a fabulous out-of-time China, and perfectly accompanies the majesty of Puccini’s last and unfinished opera. De Simone chooses to stop the opera at the point of Puccini's death, without Franco Alfano's finale.

For an inventive production, fine singing and magnificent orchestral playing, this new Leipzig Die Frau ohne Schatten deserves every success.

Andris Nelsons followed up his 2012 Tristan und Isolde with a stirring performance of Wagner’s breakthrough work, Der fliegende Holländer, with a fine array of soloists and the CBSO in Birmingham. At a little over two hours, The Flying Dutchman is one of Wagner’s shorter operas, but it shares its supernatural themes with many of his other works.

It’s no surprise that Turandot is one of the most performed and best loved operas of all time, coming in at number 15 in the Operabase league table. Its beautiful music and lavish orchestration, along with its very exciting and exotic story are what operatic dreams are made of.