Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Adam Diegel

The white hot intensity and conviction of the duet between Santuzza and Turiddu encapsulated the strengths of this performance.

Sondra Radvanovsky scores a rousing success in the taxing title role of Bellini's masterpiece in New York.

During Verdi’s bicentenary month and year, it’s fitting that Opera Philadelphia kicked off its 2013/14 season with the work that Verdi himself considers as having launched his own career – Nabucco. Written at a time when Italy longed to be free of foreign rule, Verdi’s name and the expression “Viva Verdi” became synonymous with Italian nationalism and unification.

Carmen has always been in my head as a “pretty” opera: lovely tunes, colourful setting, exotically alluring gypsy brushing up against hunky bullfighter and handsome soldier - not exactly French Grand Opera, perhaps, but a far cry from gritty verismo.

Sultry and brassy, calculating and cruel, the character Carmen is, well, hard to like. By contrast, Bizet’s opéra comique of the same name playing in repertory at Glimmerglass Festival this summer is resoundingly popular, bringing audiences to standing ovations.The shining virtue of this Glimmerglass production is the music—especially the singing.