Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Michelle DeYoung

Robert Hayward was unafraid to 'go ugly' when need be in Jurowski's symphonically executed concert performance. 

The final instalment of the Hong Kong Philharmonic's Ring cycle merits the orchestra joining the international big league. 

What you will find in Mahler's Third is music which resonates with every part of your life. Esa-Pekka Salonen proves an indefatigable and sure-footed guide.

McDermott envisages Aida as a sister production to his team's mesmeric Akhnaten. But would the hypnotic juggling and glacial choreography work for Giuseppe Verdi's Nile epic?

As clearly visible on all photos, the Sydney Opera House has two “sails”, interconnected major sections. One of them houses concerts, the other operas. Opera performances, however, are not exclusively taking place in the Opera Theatre.

The Philadelphia Orchestra presented an exciting and fresh performance of Swan Lake selections and Bluebeard's Castle, led by its energetic music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin.

  Michelle DeYoung and Paul Groves were the soloists in Mahler’s late “symphony with solo voices.” The concert opened with a classically balanced reading of Schubert’s “Unfinished” symphony.

An evening of heavy-hitting, late Romantic symphonic and operatic repertoire by Bruckner and Wagner that was rich in artistry, if a little overwhelming for some.

The Met brought back its traditional staging of Tannhäuser with remarkable performances by the Orchestra, Chorus and soloists, with two outstanding male singers.

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

Earnest singing and dramatic insight made Das Rheingold with the Hong Kong Philharmonic a remarkable evening. 

The four-part concert, conducted by Franz Welser-Möst, emphasized Boulez's relationship with the orchestra as composer, teacher, conductor, and friend, with four musical works to illustrate those characteristics.

Two Eastern European masterpieces were given gripping readings by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra under Edward Gardner.

Les occasions d’entendre les Gurrelieder d’Arnold Schönberg ne sont pas si fréquentes.

“The most beautiful sound an audience can make,” Dudamel told the expectant masses, “is silence.” They chuckled knowingly. Dudamel’s request was borne out of the obvious production being made of Tuesday night’s performance. The giant boom and manned onstage cameras indicated that the performance was indeed being filmed.

The Wagner bicentennial marches on, bringing grand sounds from practically every corner of the musical earth. What appear most frequently on concert programs are various extracts from the operas, such as the collection of preludes, overture, and vocal and orchestral excerpts offered by the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Daniele Gatti at Carnegie Hall.

When one hears an Esa-Pekka Salonen interpretation one expects no less than a keen and original approach tempered by an incredible ear for accuracy. This no doubt comes from his prolific work as a composer, work which has of late dominated his professional life.The sound he pulled from the cello section to open tonight’s concert of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde was breathtakingly withdrawn.

The orchestra of the Metropolitan Opera House rarely gets out of its pit, but when it does, it plays at Carnegie Hall. Carnegie has a rather different acoustic to the Met – much more closely-held, much more intense – and its unforgiving glare occasionally presented one challenge too many for the MET Orchestra. Still, they acquitted themselves well in this matinée.

The Cleveland Orchestra closed its 2011/12 season on Thursday and Saturday, May 31 and June 2, with stirring performances of Giuseppe Verdi’s Requiem, with the orchestra’s Director of Choruses Robert Porco conducting the orchestra, the precisely-trained Cleveland Orchestra Chorus, and an unusually well-matched quartet of soloists.

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.

The Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra clearly wore its heart on its sleeves in naming the opening concert for the 2011/12 season “Heaven and Earth”. There could be no mistake in matching the works to the title. Saturday’s performance showcased the versatility and maturity of the orchestra in handling sharply divergent artistic intentions. When they wrote their Symphony No.

I sometimes wonder what it must have been like to have been at the first performance of today’s well-known master works. Bach’s St John Passion, for example, or Beethoven’s Eroica and Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring – and Mahler’s second symphony, the Resurrection.

La Philharmonie de Paris accueillait l’Orchestre du Conservatoire supérieur de Paris encadré par l'Ensemble Intercontemporain, pour une soirée consacrée à Ligeti, Kurtag et Bartók.

Dans ce texte d’une portée tellurique, qu’il taille et agence avec autant d’adresse que de respect, impossible de ne pas être subjugué par l’autorité et le tact naturels du chef estonien. Un très grand concert !