Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | James Creswell

Sir David Pountney's 1997 staging for Welsh National Opera is given a welcome new lease of life at Grange Park Opera, splendidly cast... with one major exception. 

Ireland’s first Wagner opera in over a decade dazzles with a captivating production by Rachael Hewer for Irish National Opera. 

The Ukrainian director's “revisioning” of Beethoven's only opera plunges it into an incoherent underworld in Amsterdam.

Margaret Atwood’s dystopic novel, masterfully adapted for the operatic stage, is strongly performed at ENO and rings even truer today than it did when it was written.

Christof Loy's 2019 production proves even more compelling second time round, with excellent acting and a properly heroic tenor performance from Brian Jagde.

Directed by Matthew Eberhardt and conducted by Matthew Kofi Waldren, this semi-staging of Bizet's opera is well worth experiencing, despite its weak plot. 

Martyn Brabbins conducts an excellent ENO orchestra and consistently good ensemble cast as Richard Jones delivers a wealth of narrative detail to introduce Wagner's Ring.

With a powerful but not world-beating team of soloists, Gardner and the LPO tackle Schoenberg's sprawling cantata with aplomb – except for one near-catastrophic misstep.

Jonathan Miller's modish production returns to The Metropolitan Opera with three leads who are absolutely right. 

Verdi and Schiller lose out to Barbora Horáková in a new staging for English National Opera. 

Any parallels between Rome in the first century under Emperor Titus and the United States two millennia later under Emperor Trump were lost in a Tinseltown graphic novel sweep.

A twist on the usual Enlightenment path, this is an admirable production, excellently executed.

Ivor Bolton and David McVicar have teamed up to create an unapologetically Brittenian Gloriana, with Anna Caterina Antonacci at the top of a great cast

Jake Heggie's spectacular vocal writing combine with Terence McNally's perfectly paced libretto to provide intense music drama which forces you to confront darkness.

An able cast sings in Christof Loy’s non-interventionist and insightful production of Verdi’s panoramic tragedy, conducted with vivid detail by Michele Mariotti.

Skelton's Florestan provides the power in a refined, elegant performance that brings out the beauty in Beethoven's score.

In an elegant new production by Ivo van Hove, Malin Byström portrays a graceful, erotic Salome and the RCO play with sensuous lyricism under Daniele Gatti.

Sir Mark Elder's 70th birthday Gurre-Lieder threatens to dislodge the roof in Manchester with the combined forces of the Hallé and BBC Philharmonic

Opera North's new production of The Snow Maiden is the first professional staging in the UK for over 60 years, although the magic is intermittent

Penny Woolcock's shanty town production continues to improve with each outing. This time, ENO has found singers who can negotiate the vocal challenges more naturally. 

Richard Jones' new production is original and thought-provoking, while a commendable cast soars under the capable baton of Mark Wigglesworth.

Wagner's Die Walküre and Tippett's A Child of Our Time both attempt to capture the essence of humanity. Despite making for an unusual pairing, the programme was an effective one.

In Anna Russell's wittily deadpan analysis of Wagner's Ring cycle, she describes Wotan as “the head god” – pausing for dramatic effect before adding “and he's a crashing bore too.”

Opera North's cycle offers a form of personal Wagner therapy: all four music dramas in concert performances, but with carefully choreographed video and lighting effects. 

English National Opera’s first staging of Bellini’s bel canto masterpiece is a musical and dramatic triumph.

A revival of Simon McBurney's 2013 production of The Magic Flute reaches new heights under Mark Wigglesworth's baton.

Calixto Bieito’s new production of Verdi’s The Force of Destiny for English National Opera is – for him – a tame affair. 

With ENO having been in the news for all the wrong reasons last week,  it needed Richard Jones' The Mastersingers of Nuremberg to be a great production. Lit up by a towering performance by Iain Paterson, it is.

Smetana's The Bartered Bride by Opera North at Leeds Grand Theatre directed by Daniel Slater is a confident revival of an old success. 

Opera North's static production of Monteverdi's The Coronation of Poppea directed by Tim Albery takes place in a murderous psychopath’s private cellar. 

“It is not his trial, it is mine, mine. It is I whom the devil awaits.” Richard Croft's Vere leads an outstanding cast in LA Opera's revival of Billy Budd.

Before the beginning of this new version of Mozart’s The Magic Flute from Simon McBurney, Complicite and English National Opera, one may wonder, looking at the stage, why it was recently hailed as the company’s most technically advanced creation to date: an austere, no-frills set consisting of a single suspended rectangular slab and a raised orchestra pit both reflect this production’s refreshing

In his production of Fidelio for English National Opera, director Calixto Bieito sets out to completely contradict the work’s central tenet.

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.

The set for this Faust is a series of blank screens, which slide about quickly and frequently, tall canvases for constantly changing images provided by Berlin-based video artist Lillevan.

The strange yet compelling story of the 350-year-old opera singer Elina Makropulos was Opera North’s showcase in a production première at this year’s Edinburgh International Festival. Leoš Janáček wrote The Makropulos Affair, his penultimate opera, based on the Karel Čapek play about Elina Makropulos, who was given a potion to preserve her youth when she was sixteen.

Of the various possible ways of conducting Wagner's Flying Dutchman, ENO's Edward Gardner took the direct approach. From the first tremolo string notes, the orchestra launched into the main leitmotif at full tilt, followed by the sound of stormy seas swirling more furiously than you've ever heard them, leaving the audience breathless.

Bellini’s bel canto masterpiece Norma was once a staple of the operatic stage, performed by great sopranos such as Maria Callas and Joan Sutherland on a regular basis. Nowadays, despite containing one of the most famous arias of all time, it is performed less frequently.

The first lesson I learnt from this evening’s stunning performance by Opera North of Das Rheingold to a completely full Hall One at the Sage is that however much you listen to Wagner's opera, absolutely nothing can prepare you for the physical and emotional impact of seeing a live performance, with the sheer power of the orchestra and the dramatic force of the music.

Beau succès pour cette reprise de La Force du destin à l’Opéra Bastille, notamment grâce à Anna Pirozzi qui, remplaçant Anna Netrebko, interprète une magnifique Leonora.

Une mise en scène aussi amusante que brillante d'intelligence, un plateau vocal au diapason et un orchestre des grands soirs : Les Noces de Figaro présentées au Palais Garnier ont tout pour plaire !

Le chef-d'œuvre mozartien est desservi par une lecture scénique qui tombe parfois dans le contresens, mais la distribution et la direction de Gustavo Dudamel en font une belle réussite musicale.

Àlex Ollé inszeniert ein alle Sinne überwaltigendes Fest für die Augen.

Tras décadas de olvido en Europa, la obra maestra de Ginastera llega al Teatro Real con una nueva producción de Pierre Audi y la enérgica batuta de David Afkham

Une mise en scène magistrale de Christopher Alden centrée autour de l’arbre sacré, sublime la performance d’Elza van den Heever qui interprète Norma pour la première fois.