Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Andrew Foster-Williams

Lindy Hume directs a refreshingly uncomplicated new staging for New Zealand Opera, supported by fine musical performances.

Krisztian Lada's thoughtful production goes to the dark heart of ETA Hoffmann's stories, mixing Offenbach's deceptively cheerful music with staging that is always impactful and sometimes gross.

Peter Mumford's intelligent staging concept and a knockout performance by a reduced Philharmonia Orchestra made this a night to remember.

Some rousing singing from the RTÉ Philharmonic Choir of the famous choruses from the great operas. 

Vienna's Theater an der Wien stage a seldom performed opera by Carl Maria von Weber with an excellent cast, orchestra, and chorus.  

Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande emerges from an almost transcendent realm and creates a languorous atmosphere, even if it leaves some questions unanswered and realities unexplored. 

Celebrating its 60th anniversary, the Chicago Symphony Chorus made this evening truly distinctive.

The Cleveland Orchestra’s centennial season was off to an auspicious start with an encore presentation of Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen.

This summer’s production of Bizet’s Carmen on the Seebühne stage in Bregenz offers a great spectacle. 

A high-minded approach to Bach's masterpiece is undercut by an uneven performance.

Beethoven’s call to joy and brotherhood left much to be desired if not for a fantastic chorus in the final movement. 

Crowning this cycle came a truly magnificent performance of Götterdämmerung, centred very much on Richard Farnes and his orchestra.

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. 

Mahler's epic setting of the final scene from Goethe's Faust is so demanding of musical resources that any performance is a special occasion: what better work to conclude the Orchestra Of Opera North's triumphant 2015-2016 season? 

Though certainly not the most heartwarming of tales this Christmas season, this is a production one shouldn’t miss.

Superlative vocal and instrumental soloists, led by Michael Schade as a vividly intense Evangelist, impress in Bach’s St John Passion at the Concertgebouw.

A colour-coded Mosè in Egitto uses the paintings of Marc Chagall to inspire the costumes for the Jews and the Egyptians in this production of a Rossinian rarity.

After Cavalli’s Ercole Amante in 2009 and Handel’s Deidamia in 2011, De Nederlandse Opera is continuing its exploration of obscure Baroque operas with Gluck’s Armide, until 27 October.I always wondered why Armide was Gluck’s own favourite work.

Saturday night’s performance of Handel’s oratorio Theodora at La Maison Symphonique in Montréal was magnificent, probably the best concert I’ve seen this season. Les Violons du Roy, La Chapelle de Québec, as well as a handful of soloists from Québec and England, all under the masterful direction of Bernard Labadie, brought this somewhat obscure work vividly to life.

On Wednesday night the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts was more crowded than a shopping mall during the holiday season. Apparently, nothing could keep DC opera lovers from getting to the Washington National Opera - not even the notorious peak hour traffic.It comes as no surprise that Mozart’s Don Giovanni, known to some as "the greatest opera ever written" is on most opera fans’ must-see lists.

When I heard that Washington National Opera’s upcoming production of Jules Massenet’s romantic and beautifully tragic opera Werther would be set in the 20th century, I was intrigued.

A piece of music written by a dying composer, left unfinished and completed by a dedicated friend from the chaotic fragments left behind. This is not just the story of Mozart’s Requiem, so familiar to many from Peter Schaeffer’s colourful retelling in Amadeus, but also of Bartók’s Viola concerto, which was imaginatively paired with the more well-known Requiem by Northern Sinfonia this evening.

The concept of freedom is at the heart of Opera North's current production of Fidelio. As soon as you open your programme, you are encouraged by the company's General Director Richard Mantle to consider Beethoven's only opera as having something to say about the struggle for liberty that has been taking place in the Middle East over the past few months.

Après deux premiers volets signés Castellucci, Pierre Audi conclut la série dans la lignée de son Siegfried avec un opus simple et cohérent, magnifié par de superbes lumières et par la direction musicale d'Alain Altinoglu.

Même si certains procédés du metteur en scène italien restent incompréhensibles voire agacent, force est de constater que ses débuts dans la Tétralogie bruxelloise sont une réussite.

Kazushi Ono embarque le Brussels Philharmonic, le Chœur de la Radio Flamande, le chœur Octopus et quatre vaillants solistes pour un intense Stabat Mater de Dvořák.

Christof Loy ist eine glaubhafte psychologische Durchdringung der Handlung und ihrer Protagonisten gelungen, die in jeder Sekunde aus der Musik heraus empfunden ist.

Die Interpretation beeindruckte mit dramatischem Farbenspiel, Balance, Dynamik und Gespür für Wettkampf sowie einer großen Portion Augenzwinkern.

Benjamin Brittens erste große Oper verschmilzt mit Christof Loys Inszenierung zu einem Gesamtkunstwerk.

Andreas Homoki schafft mit seiner Neuinszenierung ein psychologisch raffiniert konstruiertes Gesamtkonzept.

Über feierliche Orgien und historische Extreme nähern sich Concerto Köln und Kent Nagano nun mit viel Fantasie der romantischen Opernwelt.

Le chef-d'œuvre wagnérien bénéficie de la mise en scène intelligente et subtile de Ralf Pleger et d'un couple-titre convaincant. Très grande prestation d'Alain Altinoglu à la baguette.

Dans une version inédite de l'opéra de Gounod, plateau vocal de haut vol et orchestre peu inspiré ont peiné à s'accorder.

Si la nouvelle mise en scène d'Olivier Py s'appuie sur des postulats discutables, la réalistion est néanmoins très convaincante. 

El Festival de Música de Canarias propone en su 33 edición una obra tan hermosa como de singular complejidad: los Gurrelieder de Schoenberg. Dos orquestas y dos coros se unieron en el escenario bajo la dirección de Josep Pons para dar vida a la monumental composición.

Eine rundum gelungene konzertante Aufführung von Salieris Oper lässt auf eine Fortsetzung des Salieri-Paris-Zyklus hoffen.

Une tragédie magnifiquement interprétée qui oppose amour et devoir dans un dilemme typiquement cornélien.

Una soberbia interpretación que hizo justicia a la utopía humanista del sexagenario Franz Joseph Haydn

Das Theater an der Wien feiert sein 10-jähriges Bestehen mit einer von Nikloaus Harnoncourt eingerichteten Fassung der Leonore von 1806. 

Dirigé par Ulf Schirmer, le Chœur de la Radio Bavaroise, l’Orchestre de la Radio de Munich et les solistes ont donné une très belle soirée. Il est regrettable cependant que les longueurs du texte aient pu parfois distraire le spectateur.