Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Zachary Nelson

Lyric Opera of Chicago's production of Missy Mazzoli's opera, which the company co-commissioned, has strong, dramatic, expressive music throughout, but the story lacks continuity. 

 An unusual double bill of operas by Joby Talbot and Sergei Rachmaninov under conductor Lidiya Yankovskaya in Chicago.  

Static blocking and an uneven cast can't kill a Lucia di Lammermoor with a star this bright.

The revival of Calixto Bieito's Carmen in Oslo proves a bumpy ride, with uneven singing and orchestral playing, saved by Katarina Bradić's captivating portrayal of the title heroine.

Calixto Bieito’s production of Georges Bizet’s Carmen isn't without controversy. San Francisco Opera gave us raw sexuality unvarnished by any degree of social refinement.

“For some operas,” famed conductor Carlo Maria Giulini once said, “you can accept a voice of not absolute beauty – if it is well used and he is an artist and interpreter, it will work. But for Verdi you need all this plus the essential sound.

As the legend goes, a noble cavalier loses his battle with giant windmills. But the Academy of Vocal Arts wins big with their latest production, Jules Massenet’s melodic Don Quichotte.

In his program notes for Pelléas et Mélisande, director K. James McDowell refers to the only opera Claude Debussy ever completed as "a towering masterpiece in the operatic repertoire.

While recordings of Arabella abound, operagoers could conceivably go years without actually seeing the piece performed. Compared to the frequency with which companies present Der Rosenkavalier, Ariadne auf Naxos, and Salome, Richard Strauss’s Arabella is an infrequently seen gem.