Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Zoltán Megyesi

Klára Kolonits's marvellous Lucia is the only thing brightening the bleak performance of the Hungarian State Opera's new Lucia di Lammermoor.

This visiting production by Róbert Alföldi set in a psychiatric unit is sensational; thought-provoking, moving and with a very fine cast.

The big man in the fat suit rules the show, briging vigour and joie de vivre to Hungarian State Opera's Falstaff.

A neglected work in Hungary, Idomeneo receives an intense performance under the baton of György Vashegyi.

This concert saw the Budapest Festival Orchestra reduced to a period ensemble of fewer than ten musicians plus soloists for Bach’s cantata ‘Herr, gehe nicht ins Gericht mit deinem Knecht’, and after the interval packed closely together as they filled the large stage of the Konzerthaus with forces well in excess of the not-insignificant minimum required for a big Bruckner symphony.

Librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte billed Don Giovanni a “dramma giocoso,” literally a “jocular drama,” and, unsurprisingly, finding the balance between comedy and drama is the key to any good production.