Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Enrique Mazzola

Gaetano Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda is perhaps most famous for a single and highly emotional scene in which two monarchs engage in a venomous confrontation. One is doomed to die. 

Oliver Py's new Meyerbeer staging offers plenty of clichés, but is a solid show, backed up by a fine musical performance.

Questionable identities, clandestine messages, love and money are the stuffs of Gioacchino Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia, revived again in Zurich.

In the absence of an indisposed Christoph von Dohnányi, Enrique Mazzola impressed in a perfectly formed programme with the Philharmonia. 

Strong vocal talent rules the night, and a late moment of visual splendor caps off a serviceable reading of a battered warhorse.

Glyndebourne's annual performance at the Proms proves dramatically untraditional but musically solid.

Annabel Arden's new production, although decently sung and visually striking, is seriously under-directed, allowing forced acting to blunt the humour.

A revival of Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore at the Met, where Vittorio Grigolo's Nemorino happily ignores most of Bartless Sher's subtexts. 

In Donizetti’s most popular comic opera, the great mix of slapstick buffa and an obtuse venue make up the stuffs of what audiences continue to love. 

An all-Italian programme conducted by Enrique Mazzola encompasses the theatrical worlds of opera, film and ballet as well as purely musical tone-painting.

A modern updating of Vasco da Gama's discovery of a sea route to India? Vera Nemirova's stylish production of Meyerbeer's Grand Opéra works inteligently for the most part. 

Glyndebourne's season opener features an outstanding singing performance by baritone Igor Golovatenko, leading a strong vocal cast. However, staging and orchestral performance leave much to be desired.

A rare chance to hear Meyerbeer's comic opera Dinorah performed in a concert version by the Deutsche Oper Berlin leaves the reviewer concurring with the verdict of history.

Last Thursday’s concert with the Oslo Philharmonic featured four pieces with little or no connection to each other, other than three of the pieces being either written by Spanish-speaking composers or actually being about Spain. Yet, apart from one piece, it all came together into a rather coherent whole.The concert began with Jacques Ibert’s Bacchanale.

L’orchestre national d’Ile de France fait ressortir dès les premières notes le côté comique de l’opéra, tout en montrant un plaisir gourmand à jouer cette musique légère et chatoyante.

L'admirable chef d'orchestre Enrique Mazzola et la contralto Marie-Nicole Lemieux nous proposent un concert Rossini en vue d'un enregistrement live. Une vitrine exceptionnelle pour l'orchestre de Montpellier ?

Récital Rossini autour de la contrealto Marie-Nicole Lemieux dont les partis pris musicaux soit subjuguent soit interrogent. 

Composée en 1812 par Rossini tout juste âgé de 20 ans, L’occasione fa il ladro est une burletta ou petite farce où l’on sourit souvent. Elle cache cependant une réelle profondeur sur les questions de l’amour et de belles prouesses techniques.

Une programmation cohérente et originale, une prestation imparfaite mais sincère, des idées nouvelles : le concert Empereur de l'ONDIF, avec ses trois campagnes napoléoniennes, fut un concert intelligent.

Mardi 27 mai avait lieu au Théâtre des Champs-Elysées la dernière représentation de Tancredi, “mélodrame héroïque en deux actes” datant de 1813. Le premier grand opera seria de Rossini était servi par une belle distribution, assez efficace pour faire oublier par moments l’absence d’originalité de la mise en scène.