Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Emma Matthews

This abridged version of Massenet's Cendrillon was clearly chosen for a wide Sydney audience, succeeding as a popular offering in the Australian summer holiday season. 

Bizet's The Pearl Fishers has its problems, but a good account of its score does have its pleasures, especially when it's all brightened up by the presence of Emma Matthews.

A new pastiche opera, Voyage to the Moon offers a collection of Baroque arias and ensembles woven into a retelling of the Orlando story. 

Rigoletto contains some of Verdi’s greatest melodies, and Opera Australia’s new production brings out the mixture of passion and darkness the heart of this story.

Opera Australia's laugh-out-loud production of Il Turco in Italia (“The Turk in Italy”) by Rossini at the Sydney Opera House combines vocal excellence and strong characterisation.

I left the Sydney Opera House last night feeling vaguely dissatisfied, and yet a bit puzzled at my dissatisfaction. La Traviata is chock-full of Verdi’s most glorious music, and well though I know the score, I wasn’t feeling in the least jaded to begin with.

For many opera fans, especially here in Australia, the title role in Lucia di Lammermoor is indelibly connected with the late, much lamented Joan Sutherland. She made her breakthrough as Lucia in a Covent Garden production of 1959, and continued to sing the part for over three decades, thankfully leaving several celebrated recordings.

I could not have asked for a more magical setting in which to watch Verdi's La Traviata. In front of me was the floating stage, surrounded by gently rippling water glistening in the evening moonlight. On the left rose the buildings of Sydney's central business district, while on my right was the beautiful harbour bridge and opera house.

Mahler's Second Symphony is most certainly epic and needs an epic performance to do it justice. The Sydney Symphony Orchestra and Sydney Philharmonia Choirs went some way to achieving this on Friday night. The symphony deals with weighty themes of life, death and resurrection and contains Mahler's own vision of immortality in its triumphant conclusion.