Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Frédéric Antoun

Adès opera resists explanation, and the ambiguity of the story drives much of its compelling nature. 

After all the speculation, Jonas Kaufmann made his role debut as Otello at The Royal Opera – an impressive, if not unqualified, success. 

Luis Buñuel's derision at the sense of entitlement of over-privileged, self-righteous prigs shines through a high quality operatic adaptation.

Kent Nagano and OSM wowed with cerebral approach to Carmina Burana.

The Salzburg Festival audience warmly applauded Thomas Adès, Tom Cairns and all musicians for a rounded and gripping première.

Zurich’s revival of Georges Bizet’s three-act opera Les pêcheurs de perles (The Pearl Fishers) pulls out all the stops, but it was not to everyone’s liking.

One has to admit that the 2015 vintage of this operatic Grand Cru, with us since 1999, is a particularly fine one. To be consumed with immoderation!

After Cavalli’s Ercole Amante in 2009 and Handel’s Deidamia in 2011, De Nederlandse Opera is continuing its exploration of obscure Baroque operas with Gluck’s Armide, until 27 October.I always wondered why Armide was Gluck’s own favourite work.

Ambroise Thomas’s Hamlet has riled and infuriated ever since its 1868 première, though for many it is merely an object of derision: one 1869 correspondent to the satirical magazine Punch admits not having seen the work but nevertheless disparages it as ‘Omelette’, a musical ‘burlesque’, and pillories Thomas’s fondness for drinking songs with the lines ‘To drink or not to drink? That

Le Théâtre du Capitole accueillait Christophe Rousset et sa troupe pour l’Orphée et Eurydice de Gluck, avec un remarquable Frédéric Antoun dans le rôle d'Orphée.

Véritable précis de monadologie aux accents newtoniens, dont l’acuité et la précision le disputent à la chaleur et au charnel dans un tourbillon de couleurs, le Cosí de Keersmaeker mêle savamment mouvement et harmonie dans un geste aussi chorégraphique que musical. Pour un résultat saisissant !

Cette saison, l’Opéra Comique fête ses 300 ans. Intitulé « Si l’Opéra Comique m’était conté », le gala célébrant le tricentenaire de l'institution retraçait son histoire en donnant un aperçu des créations emblématiques du lieu. Une frise chronologique efficace et très bien servie.