Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Netia Jones

A rare 17th-century English Baroque spectacular, designed to delight the Restoration crowd, is given a contemporary twist in Sydney. 

In the first and last acts, ladies entered with a train still attached to a bolt of cloth, which was then cut to length by an attendant. Was this production brought to the stage in a great hurry, allowing no time for costume fittings? 

Brian Irvine and Netia Jones pull no punches in telling the story of Rosemary Kennedy, sister of JFK and Bobby, left permanently disabled by a lobotomy at the age of 23

A twist on the usual Enlightenment path, this is an admirable production, excellently executed.

Netia Jones' new production taps into Britten's silvery underworld in a staging dominated by video wizardry which is hypnotically beautiful, but comes at a price.

Netia Jones is a visionary stage practitioner, but this show is a rare misjudgement.

Hans Zender's composed interpretation of Schubert's great song-cycle Winterreise, sung by Ian Bostridge, with visuals by Netia Jones, reveals the stark beauty, timelessness and philosophical qualities of Schubert’s music and Mueller’s poetry.

Unsuk Chin's opera Alice in Wonderland is performed by the Los Angeles Philarharmonic, conducted by Susanna Mälkki. This is no Disney movie! 

Lincoln Center' White Light Festival presents Benjamin Britten's Curlew River with an excellent ensemble of singers and musicians. 

“The moonlit night dazzled us. Birds shrieked in the trees. There was a rush of wind in the fields. We crawled through the dust, a pair of snakes.”Maybe the pair of snakes is Franz Kafka, the author, and György Kurtág, the composer who set this short passage (along with 39 others by Kafka) to music.

The works of Anton Webern – famously described by Stravinksy as “dazzling diamonds” – have been “unwrapped” as part of The Rest is Noise festival this month. This was a timely project, as the output of this Second Viennese School composer has often been misrepresented due to its considerable (and problematic) impact on 20th- and 21st-century music.

While there’s no reason that a children’s opera should be simple or easy, there’s no real need for it to be difficult either. So I was a little confused going into the Barbican’s performance of Oliver Knussen’s brilliant brace of Maurice Sendak adaptations this Saturday, which was surrounded, despite the works’ subject matter, with a slightly unbecoming aura of seriousness.

The Scottish Ensemble has been resident in Dundee for four days, really getting under the skin of the city. Amongst a whole raft of activities, including pop-up concerts, performing a film score live at a screening at Dundee Contemporary Arts, the Ensemble has been working with string players from Dundee Schools Orchestra and Dundee Symphony Orchestra.

The memory has dimmed somewhat in the past few years. But it remains firmly entrenched in my mind. I wish I could say that this moment was a formative one in my development as musicologist; that destiny took hold of this young boy and led him to the path of his eventual vocation. But no such thing happened.

Une mise en scène aussi amusante que brillante d'intelligence, un plateau vocal au diapason et un orchestre des grands soirs : Les Noces de Figaro présentées au Palais Garnier ont tout pour plaire !

Le chef-d'œuvre mozartien est desservi par une lecture scénique qui tombe parfois dans le contresens, mais la distribution et la direction de Gustavo Dudamel en font une belle réussite musicale.