Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Benjamin Rasheed

Damiano Michieletto's imaginative take on Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffmann is lavish fun, with star turns from Jessica Pratt, Iván Ayón Rivas and Marko Mimica.

Three outstanding debuts and a warm and funny ensemble shine in David McVicar's naturalistic Marriage of Figaro. 

Gale Edwards' popular revival, set in the 1930s Weimar Republic, brings visual delight and showcases Australian-Chinese tenor Kang Wang as Rodolfo.

A beautiful 17th-century setting does nothing to dim the freshness and relevance of Sir David McVicar's production for Opera Australia.

A successful concert performance of Umberto Giordano's verismo hit in Sydney, with a trio of international stars. 

Gale Edwards' Opera Australia staging of Richard Strauss' bloody opera is revived with Lise Lindstrom in the title role. 

A fine cast led by Maija Kovalevska conveys the timeless beauty and emotion of Puccini’s Parisian melodrama, but the 1930s Berlin setting remains an imperfectly realised transformation.

With her signature role’s coloratura fireworks and dramatic nuance, Jessica Pratt’s Sydney Opera House debut is one to remember.

Remarkable singers and magnificent sets successfully transpose Puccini’s Tosca to Nazi-occupied Rome, bringing home the horror of tyranny and how possible it is to occur.

One of the world’s great Carmens and John Bell’s smart direction is a winning combination for this Opera Australia production.

Julie Taymor's production maintains the magic of The Magic Flute at Sydney Opera House. 

While the billboard advertisements focussed on the presence of the ‘hit aria “Nessun dorma”’, there was much else to enjoy in this Turandot revival in Sydney: a lively, rich production and a strong cast headed by Lise Lindstrom and Yonghoon Lee.

Camels, fireworks, and a gigantic head of Nefertiti: the Sydney Harbour production of Aida is not short on spectacle. Among the cast, Latonia Moore is outstanding in the title role, with good support from Miljana Nikolic as Amneris and Michael Honeyman as Amonasro.

In his director’s note, Jonathan Biggins writes, ‘All I can hope for is that you go out of the theatre feeling a bit more cheerful than when you came in’. If that was the opera’s aim, then few could claim that it was not successful in achieving it. The ABC’s Limelight magazine describes the production as ‘a razor sharp, satirical romp that’s camper than a row of tents and twice as funny’.