Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Roberto Alagna

Aleksandra Kurzak's lyrical Tosca brings out the woman behind the caricature in this revival of Sir David McVicar's lavish production.

With more cast reshuffles than in Downing Street of late, this revival of Damiano Michieletto's intertwined Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci double bill triumphs against the odds.

Dressed in white, with an origami swan in his hand, Robert Alagna's Lohengrin is less a Grail knight than an absent-minded daydreamer.

A pleasurable evening of surprises in Marco Arturo Marelli’s Turandot.

The French-Sicilian tenor shines in Sir David's McVicar's pristine take on Umberto Giordano's slice of verismo. 

The Met's new season opens with a new Samson et Dalila only marginally more trashy than Saint-Saëns’ peculiar brand of kitschy orientalism.

Saint-Saëns' exotic dip into the Bible is given a cool update in Alexandra Liedtke's new production at the Wiener Staatsoper.

David McVicar's uninspiring Cavalleria rusticana remains problematic, but a strong Pagliacci leaves the New York audience gasping. 

An icy female ruler, three chaotic cabinet ministers, questionable hand-holding - it could only be Puccini's last opera in a revivial of Serban's gorgeous 1984 production.

This was meant to be Pretty Yende's night, but it was Armenian tenor Liparit Avetisyan who stole hearts as country bumpkin Nemorino. 

Vienna stages an all-star new production of Verdi's classic, with sublime singing in Daniele Abbado's Spanish Civil War setting.

Anthony Minghella's Madama Butterfly is still one of the best productions running at the Met at the moment, and Kristine Opolais was the dramatic star of the evening.

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.

Lavish sets and costumes, plus high musical quality, make Tosca at the Vienna State Opera a fine example of grand opera. 

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 modern updating of Vasco da Gama's discovery of a sea route to India? Vera Nemirova's stylish production of Meyerbeer's Grand Opéra works inteligently for the most part. 

Les Chorégies d'Orange present a new production of Verdi's Il trovatore with mixed results.

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.

Last night’s performance, the second after a serious casting face-lift held to that tradition, and was very well received despite its inherent flaws, thanks to some very fine singing.

Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette attracted a large audience for a concert performance from Madrid, enticed by Roberto Alagna's Roméo.

The Met's revival of Carmen, with its rotating set, has a successful opening night with a strong cast, an insightful conductor, a superb orchestra and chorus, all working well as a team.

From Otello's opening thunderstorm, Myung Whun Chung and the Orchestre Philharmonique de France leave us gasping, while Alagna turns in a magnetic performance in the title role.

The Royal Opera House revives Jonathan Kent's traditional production, but with a crucial lack of magnetism between hero and heroine, Puccini's taut thriller feels somewhat muzzled.

The ROH's revival of Carmen doesn't bring anything new to the opera, but a stellar cast and stylishly traditional production make it a very enjoyable evening.

This opera gala saw the Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic Orchestra mark their 15th anniversary with an unforgettable evening. The BIPO were joined by tenor Roberto Alagna, making his Istanbul debut, and mezzo-soprano Roxana Constantinescu, a rising star.

Goethe’s epistolary novel Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (“The Sorrows of Young Werther”) hit the 1774 zeitgeist not only because it brought back emotion to the rather sober Age of Enlightenment, but because the tragic title hero sports a multi-faceted character that lends itself to various interpretations and projections, therefore making it easy to feel sympathy or even partly identify with the

Yesterday I went to see a convoluted story about French revolutionaries, as belted out at top volume to serviceable but hardly creative ballads. No, I didn’t go to the Les misérables movie. I went to see Roberto Alagna in Opera Orchestra of New York’s concert presentation of Umberto Giordano’s Andrea Chénier.

Take one hapless but lovable hero, one capricious but ultimately vulnerable heroine, a doctor and an army officer straight out of commedia dell’arte, a couple of basso buffo patter songs, at least one memorable romantic ballad, and stir the lot into a good lashing of boisterous Italian music with a sprinkling of furtive tears.

After years of opera going, is it really still possible for me to be moved to tears by a tenor’s wail at the sight of a consumptive heroine dying tunefully in her bed at the end of the last act? I didn’t think so, but on the basis of last night’s Covent Garden performance of La Bohème, the answer would appear to be yes.

Read our review of Nicholas Hytner's production of Verdi­'s Don Carlo in its 2010 broadcast from the Met Opera in New York.

Read our review of Richard Eyre's production of Carmen by Bizet in its 2010 broadcast from the Met Opera in New York.

Read our review of Nicolas Joël's production of Puccini­'s La Rondine in its 2009 broadcast from the Met Opera in New York.

Read our review of Guy Joosten's production of Gounod­'s Roméo et Juliette in its 2007 broadcast from the Met Opera in New York.

Manon fait son retour à Bastille dans un spectacle cohérent, avec une distribution réservant quelques belles surprises – mais une direction d'orchestre lorgnant un peu trop vers l'opéra...

Plus donné au Théâtre Antique d'Orange depuis 1978, l'opéra de Saint-Saëns fait son retour avec un duo de rêve en Roberto Alagna et Marie-Nicole Lemieux.

Dans la mise en scène de Warlikowski créée en 2017, Don Carlo est de retour à Bastille, cette fois-ci dans sa version italienne. Une franche réussite malgré l'état grippal de Roberto Alagna.    

Au Concert de Paris, les stars de la musique classique se sont succédées devant les caméras de télévision, sous la Tour Eiffel. Pour de beaux moments, malgré la lourdeur des paillettes du 14 juillet.

Le duo constitué par Jean-François Borras et Anita Rachvelishvili signe une performance de choix dans l'opéra de Bizet. Mise en scène et direction musicale laissent plus de motifs de satisfaction que de regrets.

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.

Cantatrices en tête, un casting vocal prestigieux (Radvanovsky, Rachvelishvili, Alvarez, Lucic) assure le succès du célèbre opéra de Giuseppe Verdi. La mise en scène d'Alex Ollé déçoit.

Roberto Alagna, Aleksandra Kurzak und Dalibor Jenis bringen frischen Wind in Christine Mielitz' Inszenierung an der Wiener Staatsoper.

Zwei Verismo-Klassiker, die sich nach kurzfristigen Umbesetzungen auf unterschiedlichem Niveau präsentierten, wurden von Roberto Alagna in Höchstform zusammengehalten. 

Carmen dans la mise en scène de Calixto Bieto, présentée actuellement à l'Opéra Bastille, dépeint une héroïne victime du machisme et d'un certain ordre moral conservateur, tout en affirmant sa nécessité d'indépendance et la légimité de ses désirs de liberté.

Die Bayerische Staatsoper eröffnet mit einer etwas handzahmen Inszenierung vom Fromental Halévys La Juive die Opernfestspiele 2016.

Richesse de nuances tout à fait saisie par un Mikko Franck attentif, expressif mais toujours précis, et une distribution vocale enjouée – la sidérante Sabine Devieilhe en tête -  joignant volontiers le geste théâtral à l’envolée vocale, mais ne tirant jamais la couverture à soi.

Le pétillant opera buffa de Donizetti revient à l'Opéra de Paris dans une savoureuse mise en scène de Laurent Pelly, porté par une distribution de rêve. On y était. 

On attendait beaucoup de cette production du Roi Arthus de Chausson à l'Opéra de Paris mais force est de reconnaître que cette redécouverte ne fut qu’un demi-succès ou plutôt même un demi-échec.