Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Paul Gay

Brought to life by some sensational singing from a strong cast, Kosky's staging delivers repeated emotional punches. 

It's a big night at the Opéra Bastille for their 350th anniversary season; Oropesa's dazzling coloratura stops the show; Andreas Kriegenburg sets the action interestingly in a Star Trek future.

Dorset Opera Festival's bold decision to programme Massenet's obscure opera about a medieval Castilian hero proves to be a major success.

Selectively unearthed from current critical editions, this fabulously performed new Hoffmann plumbs the murky depths of its antihero’s psyche.

The London Philharmonic’s concert performance of Enescu’s Oedipe proves an extravagant but triumphant way to launch the orchestra’s new Royal Festival Hall season.

Vladimir Jurowski and the LPO gave a stunning performance of Enescu’s operatic masterpiece, despite a dramatically limp concert staging.

Debussy’s opera of half-lights succeeds in taming the glare of the midsummer sun in Garsington’s new staging.

After over a century, Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande finally received its Norwegian première in a fascinating production by Barbora Horáková Joly.

The concept of bringing opera and ballet together in an abstract production is interesting, but Sasha Waltz creates a cold universe that fails to convey strong emotions.

With outstanding performances from Roberto Alagna and Paul Gay, Pierre Corneille's elegant poetry shines through the return of Massenet's Le Cid to the Opéra de Paris, more than a century after it was last seen there.

Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande is on the bill at the Paris Opera. How to control one's enthusiasm for a work that is so delicate and so evocative, served up by such highly devoted artists?

Of the seventeen operas Handel wrote to star the Italian castrato Senesino, Giulio Cesare in Egitto is the most popular, and the one performed most often. It is a dramma per musica filled with ironic hints, and based on power and sex intrigues in ancient Rome. The 38-year-old Handel wrote it in England when his imported Italian-style operas started to fall out of favour.

Classical music is often portayed as being very serious, which is part of what makes it seem inaccessible at times. But this is a mistake: there are plenty of pieces that are, in a word, fun.

The pairing of Ravel’s L’Enfant et les Sortilèges (“The Child and the Spells”) with Zemlinsky’s Der Zwerg (“The Dwarf”) is an interesting juxtaposition.

Spécialistes du répertoire berliozien, John Nelson et l'Orchestre philharmonique de Strasbourg ont offert une production très estimable de Béatrice et Bénédict, malgré un Toby Spence en délicatesse dans le rôle-titre.

L'orage qui s'est abattu sur La Côte-Saint-André n'a pas perturbé La Damnation de Faust. La direction attentive de Tugan Sokhiev a mis en avant une distribution de valeur.

À l'Opéra Bastille, le retour de la mise en scène d'Andrei Serban produit un Otello mitigé, où l'étincelante Aleksandra Kurzak répond à un Roberto Alagna défaillant.

Ce que Robert Carsen nous donne à voir à travers cette vertigineuse mise en abyme, c’est le théâtre de l’âme humaine en quête d’accomplissement.

Una velada correcta para una obra que requiere algo más de desgarro

Pour cette deuxième reprise de la désormais célèbre production de Werther de Massenet mise en scène par Benoît Jacquot, c’est un tout nouveau plateau qui succède aux deux précédents

L’Opéra de Paris propose un deuxième opéra de Bellini cette saison : I Capuleti e i Montecchi. Sous la baguette de Bruno Campanella et dans une mise en scène de Robert Carsen, Ekaterina Siurina (Giuletta) et Karine Deshayes (Romeo) incarnent le couple légendaire. Une production agréable sans être exceptionnelle.