Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Garry Walker

Opera North’s The Flying Dutchman, directed by Annabel Arden, conjures up frightening storms and links the production to the plight of asylum seekers. 

Upcycled and recycled, a green production of Verdi's final opera is directed by Olivia Fuchs. 

Opera North's child-friendly production of The Cunning Little Vixen, conducted by Andrew Gourlay, is loaded with charm.

Femi Elufowju's new staging of Verdi's classic is innovative, provocative and closely connected with the modern world.

Bizet's Carmen at Leeds Grand Theatre, directed by Edward Dick and conducted by Garry Walker, provides thought-provoking modern resonances as well as an uplifting, tune-filled experience.

At a time when the “relevance” is bandied around all too frequently in relation to opera, Martinů's really does deserve that tag. 

A daring double bill from Opera North and Phoenix Dance Theatre pairs Jeanguy Saintus' new choreography for The Rite of Spring with a revival of Christopher Alden's production of Gianni Schicchi. 

Tough, thrilling, ambitious and new: The Skating Rink is an exciting new major commission by Garsington, and its world première delivered on every level.

At the opera’s great climaxes Suffolk’s famous wood-and-brick building could barely contain it.

Opera North's production of Benjamin Britten's Billy Budd, directed by Orpha Phelan, is a tense psychological drama which puts the emphasis on issues of democracy and attitudes to dictatorship. 

A suitably rustic account of Janáček’s tale: seductive, engaging, and with a sense of intimacy ideal for this small venue.

There can't have been too many concerts ever which have started with a setting of Gertrude Stein and ended with an extra-camp version of 'Ding Dong! The Witch is Dead'. The London Sinfonietta certainly broke a barrier or two on Saturday night, that's for sure.

New composers usually find it difficult, or rather near-impossible, to have their work performed in professional circumstances in front of a critical audience.

We were welcomed to one of the “more improbable lunchtime concerts ever” by James Waters, director of classical music at Horsecross: over 100 musicians from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (rebranded from RSAMD) playing Mahler’s colossal Symphony no. 7 straight through with no interval.

The Scottish Chamber Orchestra’s concerts in St Andrews are usually full-house events in the University’s Younger Hall, with recent repertoire covering Mozart piano concertos and Haydn symphonies at some length. This evening’s programme promised something quite different: four works celebrating ‘words and music’, as part of the StAnza poetry festival.

Last night saw the UK première of Alexander Raskatov's new opera A Dog's Heart, performed by ENO together with theatre company Complicite. The opera, based on a 1925 novella by Russian satirist Mikhail Bulgakov, tells the tale of Sharik, a stray dog who is given the testicles and pituitary gland of a human by an eminent surgeon, the Professor.