Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Robert Lepage

Some 30 years after its first appearance, Robert Lepage’s double bill of Duke Bluebeards Castle and Erwartung is still strikingly effective and very modern-looking music theatre.

A piecemeal evening of high musical values as the Adelaide Festival opens with short Stravinsky pieces rather than the usual substantial opera. 

Edward Gardner's conducting brings out the nuances of Berlioz's complex score, but The Met's concert staging lacks theatrical thrust.

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.

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.

In last night’s performance of Die Walküre at the Met, Martina Serafin as Sieglinde and Simon O’Neill as Siegmund drew us completely into the process of two people falling into illicit love.

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.

It’s pretty luxurious to be able to stumble out of your front door at ten to six, wander five minutes round the corner to your friendly local cinema, be greeted with a glass of sparkling wine, and then watch a high-definition live screening of a top contemporary opera production at the Met.

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

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.

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

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 Robert Lepage's production of Berlioz­'s La Damnation de Faust in its 2008 roadcast from the Met Opera in New York.

Ewig faszinierender Shakespeare in zeitgenössischer Musik und modernem Gewand, das „hat was“.

La très attendue mise en scène de La flûte enchantée de Mozart au Festival d'opéra de Québec a valu un triomphe au metteur en scène Robert Lepage, qui a procédé à un véritable dépoussièrage de l'œuvre. 

Ein interessantes zeitgenössisches Werk und starke Bilder - allemal ein Erlebnis.