Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Jonathan Stockhammer

Barrie Kosky's new production of Philip Glass' Akhnaten for Komische Oper at the Schillertheater removes any egyptological references. 

In Frankfurt, a set of new works sound a little too familiar to one pair of old ears. 

Newly appointed Director of Staatsballett Berlin, Christian Spuck makes his mark with this season opener, a world premiere of Bovary, a ballet based on Gustave Flaubert’s classic novel of 1856. 

Pianist Sunwook Kim returns to the RSNO, while conductor Jonathan Stockhammer builds a coherent triptych out of three highly contrasting pieces.

In Zurich, two sensational ballets by choreographers Johann Inger and Edward Clug pull out all the stops... including those on the water hoses.

Even forty years after its world première in Rotterdam, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s new production of Philip Glass’s three-act opera in Basel has particularly timely relevance.

The applause and screams at the premiere were raucously frenetic – and while the hysteria seemed a bit exaggerated, an energetically positive reception was completely justified.

The chamber opera Powder Her Face has acquired a reputation as a “Don Giovanni for the Monica Lewinsky generation”, a tagline of which I was initially quite skeptical.

Francis Bacon’s painting Blood on the Floor shows a splash of blood on a wooden floor, surrounded by orange walls with a light bulb and switch above it. This painting originally inspired Mark-Anthony Turnage to write this one-movement piece of the same name, commissioned by the Frankfurt-based Ensemble Modern in 1993 and premièred in 1994.

Der russische Regisseur Kirill Serebrennikov eliminiert aus Alfred Schnittkes Oper Leben mit einem Idioten alles Politische und zeigt das Stück als Psychogramm eines Ehelebens. Ob das wohl aufgeht?

La nouvelle production de L'Heure espagnole à l'Opéra de Lyon, magnifiquement portée par la vidéo, rend hommage à Ravel en même temps qu'au vaudeville, au music-hall et à la comédie musicale. Succès garanti !