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Director Tatjana Gürbaca and Czech conductor Tomáš Netopil deliver a “Romantic” Kátya Kabanová from the Grand Théâtre de Genève at Brno’s Janáček Festival.

Peter Eötvös's thirteenth opera, based on the Trilogy by Norwegian author Jon Fosse, chronicles the struggles of a young couple to search for their own identity and place in society.

Strong singing but a stellar orchestra and staging make for a riveting production at the Kennedy Center. 

Willy Decker does not try to make the structure of the plot any clearer, mainly concentrating on the deeper meaning of the work. The cast was excellent.

To outwit death and attain immortality is a dream as old as human history. But isn’t it precisely the finite nature of life that makes it so precious?

After Jonathan Meese's Parsifal staging was rejected by Bayreuth, he channelled his frustrations into an "arch-Parsifal" which shoots the titular hero into space, with a musical re-imagining of Wagner’s score by Austrian composer Bernhard Lang.

At its local Antwerp première, David Bösch’s new production of Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Das Wunder der Heliane makes it the only house ever to have mounted twice.

Magisterial playing and conducting underpin an outstanding, engrossing evening of Wagner at the Schiller Theater.

In Los Angeles, Patricia Racette was an impressive Salome but the orchestra was, as it should, the main character.

In a reconstruction of Jean-Pierre Ponnelle’s production for the world première of Reimann’s soul-pummelling Lear, the staging stands the test of time, but the cast and orchestra leave the biggest impression.

Good versus evil, only evil wins. Wagner's Lohengrin fills the Madrid night with questions about what trust is and what it takes to maintain it.

While the term “Eurotrash” gets thrown around more often than it should, it is one that has unfortunately become synonymous with many of the Wagner opera productions that take a non-traditional approach. As opera-goers go, I tend to sympathize with the directors and find that this approach can work fantastically well in bringing Wagner’s logistically impossible scenarios to life.

To Camille Saint-Saëns, the operatic appeal of the biblical subject of Samson is perfectly understandable. Theoretically, the story contains the dramatic trappings of exciting grand opera: a romance, tragedy, larger-than-life setting, a ballet. But for current operatic audiences, it is easy for the subject to appear stale. With a lack of dramatic dynamism, staging this piece can be a challenge.

The first opera of the season at La Scala is an event of huge cultural significance in Italy, so it raised some hackles when, for Giuseppe Verdi’s centenary year, the management passed over Verdi in favour of Wagner’s Lohengrin. But even Italians disappointed by the insult to their culture found it impossible to quarrel with the quality of the singing talent on show.

The final concert of the RSNO’s 2010-11 Usher Hall season was a journey from John Adams’ reflection on the tragedy of 11th September 2001 to Beethoven’s joyful statement of brotherhood in his Symphony No. 9. John Adams’ On the Transmigration of Souls was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic to mark the first anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

Prokofjews Tolstoi-Veroperung kann an der Bayerischen Staatsoper dank kluger Regie durch Dmitri Tcherniakov und phänomenalem Dirigat von Vladimir Jurowski auch in aktuell belastendem politischen Umfeld überzeugen.

Dans le chef-d'œuvre de Janáček globalement bien servi par la distribution, la mise en scène de Tatjana Gürbaca fait le pari judicieux d’un jeu psychologique pur, malgré quelques limites.

Das Hessische Staatstheater Wiesbaden feiert die Wiederaufnahme seiner Meistersinger mit einer Inszenierung, die aktueller denn je ist und auch unangenehme Fragen aufwirft.

L'Or du Rhin marque la réouverture du Grand Théâtre de Genève rénovée. Un bonheur d'équilibre, entre la saisissante mise en scène de Dieter Dorn et une distribution vocale des plus convaincantes.