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Sven-Erich Bechtolf's staging of Wagner's Ring returns with Franz Welser-Möst at the helm for the final time, having recently announced his retirement of the cycle from his repertoire. 

The compelling story of boxer Emile Griffith's struggles with guilt and sexuality are not ideally rendered in James Robinson's new production.

In her first appearance with the orchestra this season, Nathalie Stutzmann offers overly tentative readings of Verklärte Nacht and Siegfried Idyll, alongside perfunctory excerpts from Don Giovanni.

An admirable but disjointed performance of Beethoven's sacred choral work did not benefit from an extratextual art installation.

The Metropolitan Opera performs the original French version of Don Carlos for the first time with a distinguished ensemble of soloists, but the static production offers no new insights into the depth of Verdi's masterpiece.

James Robinson’s production allows the large cast of Catfish Row to interact like the old pals – almost family – that they are.

Soprano Alexandra Shiner displays extraordinary vocal promise and stage presence across a host of Wagner's great female roles.

The Met’s new production is directed by James Robinson, who has the characters interacting and listening to one another as if in real life – the inhabitants of Catfish Row have known each other for all of their lives and love, pray and grieve like family.

A production that veers close to the Disneyesque but still provides plenty to enjoy. 

The team of soloists, the chorus and the orchestra, under the baton of Philippe Auguin, powerfully conveyed the spectacular qualities of Verdi's Don Carlo.

David Pountney's new production of Die Walküre for the Lyric Opera of Chicago incisively charts the tectonic shift of control over the future from Wotan to Brünnhilde.

Edo de Waart opted frequently for slow, steady tempi that robbed the music of a lot of its inner vitality.

Alan Gilbert reaches a pinnacle at the end of his tenure at the New York Philarmonic.

Mozart's Idomeneo proved to be a challenge for some of the soloists initially but the superb orchestra under James Levine brought about a successful opening evening at the Met.

The Metropolitan Opera's new produdtion of Rusalka fails to explore a deeper complexity of the fairy tale, although a strong ensemble of singers and the superb Met Orchestra make it a musically compelling performance.

Conductor Susanna Mälkki, in her Met Opera debut, led the Met Opera Orchestra in a limber performance of Ms Saariaho's gorgeous music, the first woman-authored score to be heard at the Met in 113 years.

In spite of some questionable staging, Lyric Opera of Chicago opened its Ring cycle on a strong note with a stellar cast, notably featuring Eric Owens’ role debut as Wotan.

Maestro Leo Hussain’s translucent rendition of the score made Capriccio the crowning glory of the Santa Fe Opera Season.  

In the final weekend of season, Muti led the CSO in a divinely inspired Bruckner Ninth, fittingly paired with the Te Deum.

A very warm concert hall and problems with musical balances worked against what was otherwise a genial reading of this contemplative work.

The late director Patrice Chéreau's last work, Elektra, was brilliantly realized at the Met, with special credit to conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen and soprano Nina Stemme.

Emotionally-engaged performance of Weill's Apartheid Opera. 

Whimsical program of French symphonic and operatic works opens the CSO's "French Reveries and Passions" festival.

Some very fine singing and beautiful, if sometimes confusing, visual effects in Opera Philadelphia's Don Carlo.  

A pleasing performance from WNO of The Flying Dutchman, with Eric Owens brooding magnificently over the whole. 

New York Philharmonic under its music director Alan Gilbert delivered an impressive performance of Verdi's famous Requiem, with an excellent ensemble of soloists and chorus.

The marriage between performers and score here is perfect, because Gershwin’s text-setting is near-miraculous, somehow every word is clear and seems to be naturally inflected by the curvature of the musical line.

The Berlin Philharmonic, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle, in collaboration with Peter Sellars, brings their superb dramatic performance of Bach's St Matthew Passion to New York.

Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic give a unique and hugely poignant performance of Bach's St Matthew Passion, staged by Peter Sellars.

What happens when a hero comes home? The exploration of this question forms the basis of director Peter Sellars’ new production of Hercules at the Canadian Opera Company.

Ana María Martínez takes on the title role as Dvořák’s nymph Rusalka in a new Lyric Opera production by David McVicar.

The word Götterdämmerung contextually translated becomes “twilight of the gods”, and Thursday night’s story at the Met was indeed full of endings: the conclusion of the saga of the ring and the end of several lives, human and god alike.

All things considered, this Met Siegfried was a mixed affair. There was much to enjoy and much to marvel at; there were times where the performance felt as if it might achieve real lift-off, but it never quite achieved the sustained momentum of Friday's Walküre.

Quite simply, it’s the largest scale event in all of opera. With 18 hours of music in a 3,800 seat house, Wagner’s Ring Cycle at the Met is a giant, lavish undertaking – all starting with that famous E flat chord: starting from the quietest of pianissimo double bass notes and building for nearly four minutes before it explodes into the melody of the Rhinemaidens.

Under conductor Alan Gilbert, the New York Philharmonic and the New York Choral Artists gave an inspired but slightly uneven performance of J.S. Bach’s Mass in B minor on Wednesday night. Playing with great panache as well as a mindful sense of the historical weight of the piece, the vocalists and musicians gave bristling and glistening life to a timeless work.

It’s Richard Wagner’s bicentennial year, and everyone is getting in on the act. 22 different productions, by one count, of the complete Ring cycle will be seen worldwide, not to mention countless other celebratory evenings put on by sundry ensembles.

Bass-baritone Eric Owens is no stranger to Bay Area voice aficionados. After making his local debut as Lodovico in Otello with San Francisco Opera in 2002, Owens memorably created the diet-regiment-reciting General Leslie Groves there in the world première of John Adams’ Doctor Atomic in 2005. Most recently he did yeoman's work with a smaller role in Bellini's I Capuleti e i Montecchi in October.

In the last few decades, Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi has flirted with standard repertory status, but it has not sufficiently won the hearts of opera-goers to warrant more than the occasional production. Though blessed with some of the composer’s finest melodies, the opera has problems for modern audiences.

You won’t see plumed horses, a procession of camels, or a hundred supernumeraries as standard bearers parading across the Glimmerglass stage. In fact, you have to step outside the Alice Busch Opera Theater to see any elephants at all, the animal most commonly associated with Aida, Verdi’s greatest grand opera.

The seldom-seen opera musical Lost in the Stars found prominence Friday night, enrapturing a full house at Glimmerglass Festival in New York, moving some of the actors themselves to tears, and stirring the audience to its feet for curtain call.

“When I looked at you, I heard secret music,” says Salome in her monologue to the severed head of John the Baptist. Richard Strauss’s opera trades in the unseeable and the unknowable—from the range of metaphors applied to the moon to the nearly impossible staging of a ten-minute striptease performed by a dramatic soprano—which makes it unusually well suited to concert presentation.

Read our review of Robert Lepage's production of Wagner's Götterdämmerung in its 2012 broadcast from the Met Opera in New York.

Read our review of  Robert Lepage's production of Wagner­'s Siegfried in its 2011 broadcast from the Met Opera in New York.

Ancient Greek superheroes – irresistible. Half god, half man, incredible deeds leave Perseus, Theseus, and of course Hercules enough to rival Superman, Spiderman, and The Incredible Hulk. Small wonder then why these demigods and precursor of the modern comic book superhero have captivated the hearts and minds of many of the world’s greatest writers, dramatists and composers.

Read our review of Robert Lepage's production of Das Rheingold by Wagner, in its 2010 broadcast from the Met Opera in New York.

Read our review of Penny Woolcock's production of Doctor Atomic by John Adams, in its 2008 broadcast from the Met Opera in New York.

Si la direction de Gustavo Dudamel et la mise en scène de Peter Sellars rendent justice au chef-d'œuvre wagnérien, la distribution inégale suffit à ternir le tableau.

Eric Owens singt Porgy mit Leib und Seele und ist mit seiner charismatischen Ausstrahlung der unbestrittene Held dieser Oper.