Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews

Under the baton of John Wilson, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra played Bernstein’s music with jazzy verve. The fine team of vocal soloists was lead by Kim Criswell.

Almost all the singers, orchestra and conductor were Italian, but it was local soprano Elīna Šimkus and the Latvian Radio Choir who sang Purcell’s magnum opus as if to the English manner born.

Amazing for his young age, Andris Nelsons grasped the essence of Mahler's spiritual quest in coming to terms with life's challenges

Oper Stuttgart’s new production of The Queen of Spades (Pique-Dame) pushes a directorial tendency to update opera to a modern setting to an extreme.

Prague's National Theater wraps its season with a wickedly funny revival of Offenbach's audacious operetta.

Ottensamer shared the stage at Wigmore Hall with pianist José Gallardo and together they took it by storm with the erupting scalar passages in the first movement of Weber’s Grand Duo concertant.

In the tiny Baltic state of Latvia, music loving locals are hell-bent on going for Baroque.

Jean-François Sivadier's pulsating new production propels The Don through his lusty adventures at a whirlwind pace. 

Simon McBurney's production of The Rake's Progress for Festival d'Aix-en-Provence begins with the equivalent of a blank page – a simple white paper box onto which he pours his inspiration.

Shostakovich's mighty piano cycle is given a delicate and intense performance - truly an expidition into some of the most personal of the composer's music.

An icy female ruler, three chaotic cabinet ministers, questionable hand-holding - it could only be Puccini's last opera in a revivial of Serban's gorgeous 1984 production.

Love may well be a rebellious bird, but that's as nothing to maverick director Dmitri Tcherniakov, whose twisted staging for Festival d'Aix reimagines Bizet's opera as a radical therapy session.

The musical glories of Schreker’s glistening, late-Romantic score are laid bare in the Bavarian State Opera’s first production of Die Gezeichneten since 1919.

The Llangollen International Eistedffod opens with a star-studded concert performance of Puccni's political/romantic thriller.  

One of the reasons why the programmes of the Australian Chamber Orchestra are both challenging and inspiring is because of the ensemble’s always interesting and thought-provoking approach to repertoire.

If I wrote that I loved Philippe Boesmans' Pinocchio, my nose may grow a little. The 81-year old composer in collaboration with Joël Pommerat, shifts the tale far away from any cutesy Disney fantasy, returning it to the harsh reality of Carlo Collodi's original fable.

Maurice Steger brought this essential but under-represented instrument from Renaissance and Baroque chamber and ensumble music to a mainstream concert hall. 

A musical performance of stunning quality underpins this revival of Krzysztof Warlikowski's lavish, ambiguous Strauss staging.

For their performance in the barn-like structure, the Eschers proposed several remakable pieces not standardly performed.

Despite some weakness in the main singers, the overall level of musical performances was consistently high in Leipzig, with a stark and effective production.

English National Opera join with the BBC Singers to make Royal Festival Hall debut.

In a temporary home, Cologne Opera have mounted a remarkably joyful production of Beethoven’s single, wonderful opera.

Paarvo Järvi and the NHK Symphony give a riveting account of Schumann and Schubert.

Mark Ryden's design for Whipped Cream is a masterpiece that elevates this work immeasurably.

Nationaltheater Mannheim's new production of Brecht and Weill's collaboration is a true company achievement and a thrilling evening of music and theatre.

Siegfried in Leipzig succeeds on all fronts: an engaging production, a great ensemble of singers and a well-conducted orchestra.

Tackling existential themes Alain Platel’s les ballets C de la B bring the audience to the edge of catastrophe through frantic movement.

Artistry and politics intertwine in a remarkable concert at the Komische Oper Berlin.

Cura's powerful spinto tenor impressed from his opening “Esultate!” and left no doubt as to the Moor's authority.

In a new production of Franz Lehár’s The Land of Smiles, the stoic Sou-Chong sets the melancholy tone of the operetta by singing “Smile despite your sorrows and a thousand.. aches and pains”.

Oregon Ballet Theater closed its season with the first instalment of a new program in support of emerging female choreographers. New work by Helen Simoneau and Gioconda Barbuto made a particularly striking impression.

Die Walküre in Leipzig turns the family drama into a tragedy of fear and anxiety, with glimpse of hope at the end.

Trophy room glass display cases and glassy-eyed stuffed animals are the setting for a distinctive take on Wagner's epic music drama. 

A strange evening: superb Mozart playing from Rousset, plenty of fine singing, staging and costumes that one certainly isn’t going to forget. But what’s the point of it all?

Isabelle Faust joined the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin in finely honed performances of Bach violin concertos and a rarely performed version of an orchestral suite.

Oper Leipzig's Das Rheingold unfolds with no set changes, giving Wagner's music plenty of opportunities to fuel the imagination.

Stephen Unwin's straight direction and some talented young singers from the Royal Academy of Music Opera school made these two works a real treat. 

WNO's excellent revival of John Copley's 2011 staging of Die Fledermaus is a delight. 

A world premiere that shows Alexander Whitley to be at the leading edge of new movement.  There are no stars in this 8 Minutes, other than the Sun.   

Garsington's latest Rossini buffa is on the nail orchestrally, mixed vocally and one of the best pieces of acting and stage movement you'll see in opera.

An impressive cast, lively orchestra and a few twists in the tale made this an exciting Don Giovanni from the Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz.

Barenboim and the Staatskapelle Berlin offer a fascinating shift in approach as they tackle Schubert's last two symphonies at the Boulezsaal.

With a combined age of 161 years, John Copley and Steuart Bedford certainly bring ample experience to Grange Festival's new production of Britten's Albert Herring. 

A superlative cast and perceptive staging make for a gripping revival of Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos at the Glyndebourne Festival.

Nietzsche's Midnight Song is the stillest piece of music in all Mahler, and Treviño’s poise and Larsson’s rich voice cast a powerful and profound spell.

The Staatsorchester Darmstadt under Will Humburg performed three mightly works for large orchestra to bring its season to a close: Kurtág's Stele, Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathustra and Stravinsky's Rite of Spring.

Ludovic Morlot closes his sixth Seattle Symphony season with a challenging program of Ligeti's Requiem and Mahler's Fifth that raises the stakes for musical 'redemption'. 

Considering how rarely celebrated diva Cecilia Bartoli appears in London, Wigmore Hall certainly pulled off a coup by making her duo concert with Philippe Jaroussky happen.

The American Pacifica Quartet was convincingly introduced to Aussie Nigel Westlake's Second Quartet for their Down Under tour; but revealed its essence in the theatre of Shostakovich.

At the opera’s great climaxes Suffolk’s famous wood-and-brick building could barely contain it.