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Using the Nazi regime as his Leitmotif, Canadian director Robert Carsen brings Richard Strauss’ Arabella to the Zurich stage. 

The extraordinary Italian pianist Beatrice Rana and the Philharmonia Zürich orchestra under Fabio Luisi lit up the stage in an unforgettable performance. 

Christian Spuck revisits Verdi’s sublime Messa da Requiem with a host of gifted dancers and singers at the Zurich Opernhaus.

This year’s revival of Andreas Homoki's production features excellent principals, choruses, and sublime orchestration under Fabio Luisi’s seasoned baton. The staging takes far fewer accolades.

Andreas Homoki’s new Zurich production capitalises on some quirky staging, but features superb voices in its principal roles and shows the best of the house’s joint choirs.

Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel has appeal for all ages, but Robert Carsen’s production is a different take on the beloved fairy tale.

Giorgio Sangati's staging idea pits Christians vs Saracens as pop stars against dark metal.

Musically, a rewarding Forza, but Homoki's staging is best forgotten.

The in-house orchestra played out of its skin under Fabio Luisi.

The use in the score of ancient musical instruments is what differentiates this work: pifferi, a lute, a “viola pomposa” give this work a distinctive flavour.

Fabio Luisi led The Cleveland Orchestra in Bruckner’s mighty Fourth Symphony, prefaced by a recently composed piano concerto by Sciarrino with Jonathan Biss.

The backstory doesn’t bode well: three fugitive criminals decide to found a city that will pander to society’s most vital needs: food, sex, warfare, and alcohol.

The performance of Margherita d’Anjou seen at the Festival della Valle d’Itria in Martina Franca was the first staged in modern times.

In a new production of Franz Lehár’s The Land of Smiles, the stoic Sou-Chong sets the melancholy tone of the operetta by singing “Smile despite your sorrows and a thousand.. aches and pains”.

That both the lead and a second key role were ill and couldn’t sing did not bode well, yet this performance of Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera shook up the house nonetheless.

Nikolaj Znaider and Fabio Luisi, along with NHKSO Tokyo, re-stated the obvious truth of art music that “it is all about the details.”

Fabio Luisi and the DNSO did not disappoint audiences in San Francisco, presenting a captivating program of Beethoven, Strauss and Nielsen.

Not much to set the heart racing in two works of German Romanticism performed by the London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, conducted by Fabio Luisi.

A refined Emperor Concerto from Igor Levit complemented a welcome return to the LSO by Fabio Luisi, exuding calm control and infectious enthusiasm in Brahms' second symphony.

Christian Spuck’s new ballet Messa da Requiem in Zurich, is a breathtakingly powerful achievement. But its profound impact is spurred by more than dance alone.

Don Giovanni is an opera which has as its title character a man who is an unrepentant womaniser, who ultimately receives his just reward in one of the most famous scenes in opera where he is consumed into the fires of hell.

Fabio Luisi conducts a solidly cast Guillaume Tell with panache, Rossini's final opera returning to the Metropolitan Opera after a long absence. 

Simon Keenlyside returned to the Met after absence and led a delightful cast of Don Giovanni at the Met.

A long awaited debut for an opera which revealed itself as a Romantic masterpiece.

Andreas Homoki’s new production of Vincenzo Bellini’s I puritani wows with a quartet of stellar vocalists, but its awkward staging and set design are a distinct disappointment.

Mozart’s beauty asserted but never implied, Sir Richard Eyre’s Le nozze di Figaro brings grand complications in bright turns and quick wit.

The Met's new production of Manon Lescaut with Kristine Opolais and Roberto Alagna has great potential to be successful musically, but the production is mixed at best.

The Met’s revival of David McVicar’s year-old take on the perennial Verismo twins strikes out emotionally in Cavalleria rusticana but scores high in Pagliacci. Working on the same set by Rae Smith, flanked by the forbidding stone walls of the town church, Cavalleria is dark, dark, dark – the very picture of a poor, unhappy Sicilian hill town.

A charmingly-retro, Naïf Art production of Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore at Teatro alla Scala provided a refreshing departure from the minimal, post-apocalyptic devastation trends of modern stagecraft.

The plot revolves around the daily life of a simple German town. But this fine production will make you glad that this is not your story.

“Denmark is not all Lego and pastries!” quipped Nikolaj Znaider to the Albert Hall audience. Indeed not. It is the land of Carl Nielsen, whose 150th birthday was celebrated in a packed Prom given by the Danish National Symphony Orchestra. 

A rare outing for Giovanni Simon Mayr's Medea in Corinto at the Festival della Valle d’Itria in Martina Franca. 

A dynamic cast recently gave the Zurich audience the “stuffs” of Vincenzo Bellini’s tragic opera: the power of duty, law and honour.

The Met's new production of Cav and Pag boasted strong musical performance, but its production, despite some interesting ideas, was not completely successful.

A delightful opportunity to hear nine young singers at The Met, all of whom will likely have fulfilling careers.

Besides Liszt's Piano Concerto no. 2, there was a finely wrought Beethoven Seventh and a colorful work by Italian composer Luca Francesconi. 

Julietta, Bohuslav Martinů’s seldom performed surrealistic opera of dreams and lost identity recently premiered in a new Zurich production.

Zurich recently brought a new cast to Robert Wilson’s production of Vincenzo Bellini’s Norma, a triumph of the bel canto style.

Only the slightest of quibbles with a fun, frothy new production of The Merry Widow at The Met. 

Zurich’s Opera House takes on Die Frau ohne Schatten, one of Richard Strauss’ most convoluted and technically demanding works. 

The Philhamonia Zürich’s concert of great American orchestral and song music meant a magical mix of the familiar and iconic. 

Hanna-Elisabeth Müller gives a stellar performance of "Das himmlische Leben" to crown Philharmonia Zürich's Mahler 4. 

A triumphant opening night was crowned by superb performances from Željko Lučić and Anna Netrebko as Macbeth and his Lady. But why the negative audience reaction to Adrian Noble's intelligent production? 

The Festival della Valle d'Itria opened with a 20th century opera of some musical value, but of much more historical and philological interest for scholars.

Precise Rachmaninov and heartfelt Beethoven in a fine Philharmonia Zürich programme conducted by Fabio Luisi. 

Fabio Luisi and the LSO, vindicate magnificently Bruckner's first thoughts for his Eighth Symphony, and with Lise de la Salle create a splendidly multi-dimensional Mozart.

The Met’s playful production of Rossini’s great, loveable and busy La Cenerentola is back and in excellent hands. Joyce DiDonato's Cinderella, singing the role at the Met for the first time is perfect.

Read our review of Laurent Pelly's production of Massenet's Manon in its 2012 broadcast from the Met Opera in New York.

Read our review of Willy Decker's production of Verdi's La Traviata in its 2012 broadcast from the Met Opera in New York.