Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Claudia Boyle

Donizetti heads West in Cal McCrystal's riotous, laugh-out-loud L'elisir d’amore, where dazzling singing meets cowboy capers in a gloriously zany production for Irish National Opera. 

The French premiere of the British composer's opera will be the undisputed high point of the Grande Boutique's season: a perfect confluence of music, staging and cast.

A terrific cast of principal singers lead by soprano Claudia Boyle, coupled with compelling direction from Bruno Ravella make for an exhilarating operatic experience in Donizetti's Zoraida de Granata. 

In the expert hands of both director Warlikowski and conductor Kent Nagano, the sequel to Bernstein's Trouble in Tahiti proves to be even darker and more dramatic.

Barry goes for out-weirding Carroll at a fast and furious pace. There's plenty of fun and it's beautifully staged – but is that enough?

Tom Creed's take on Offenbach's opéra fantastique works best in the Olympia act in this new production in Dublin. 

Despite the entertainment value and striking imagery, Kramer's production is a surprisingly dull affair, with curiously little chemistry between the lead couple.

The biggest stigma associated with opera in Ireland is not that it is an elitist art form, but that it is not “Irish”, and that it doesn’t belong to Irish culture, more of a recent import, like pasta, or avocado.

In the hands of director Hans Neuenfels, the Swiss première of Manfred Trojahn’s Orest was widely anticipated for its “splashes of gore and commensurate splatters of sound”.

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. 

Gerald Barry’s deliciously anarchic operatic setting of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest returns to the London stage.

The World Premiere at the Edinburgh Festival of The Last Hotel:   a strange and haunting new chamber opera from post-minimilist composer Donnacha Dennehyna and acclaimed writer Enda Walsh with the Crash Ensemble generating exciting rhythmic pulsing energy in the pit. 

As director of the film Topsy-Turvy, Mike Leigh seemed like a natural choice to turn his hand to The Pirates of Penzance at English National Opera. Sadly, this proved not to be the case. 

Leo Muscato's new production of Rigoletto was the first in Rome since conductor Riccardo Muti resigned in September, denouncing a lack of "serenity". 

Mahagonny surfaces for just the second time in Ireland, in a collaborative production resonating harshly with the country's recent economic history.

The Irish première of John Adams' Nixon in China results in an inspiring and triumphant evening in Dublin. 

There was more than a little drama at Maltese tenor Joseph Calleja’s sold-out concert recital in Dublin’s National Concert Hall this evening. He was joined by Irish soprano Claudia Boyle and the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Proinnsías Ó Duinn.

Franz Lehár’s favourite haunt was Vienna’s Café Sperl, and with the famous Theater an der Wien around the corner, Café Sperl became the meeting place for the operetta crowd around the turn of the 20th century. The Theater an der Wien was the site of the world première of Lehár’s tenth stage work, The Merry Widow, which met its enthusiastic public on 30 December 1905.