Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Sydney Opera House

This revival of Romeo and Juliet combines vivid staging and technical leads, but the lover's careful partnership lacks the volatility that makes young love convincing and tragedy believable. 

Flora unites the Australian Ballet with Bangarra Dance Theatre in a glorious collaboration that traces loss, renewal, resilience, cultural continuity and enduring vitality of the body. 

Eugene Onegin returns to the Sydney Opera house in Kasper Holten’s slightly awkward production but the singing and orchestral playing are exemplary. 

Putting Gershwin up against Mahler is a challenge, but Simone Young and Jean-Yves Thibaudet bring it off in the Sydney Symphony's 2026 season opener. 

Elijah Moshinsky’s 33-year-old production of Hansel and Gretel hasn’t aged well. 

Opera Australia's new Turandot succeeds with musical, dramatic and visual values with a mix of local and imported talent. 

Terrific orchestral colours abound in this Sydney Symphony concert under Simone Young, adding to a thoughtful and emotive rendering of one of the best-known cello concertos.

A delightful programme welcomes conductor Lionel Bringuier and returning cellist Daniel Müller-Schott to Sydney.

Three very different works from the long life of Richard Strauss are performed by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra under Simone Young.

Stephen Layton conducts Haydn and Handel, and is joined by soprano Sara Macliver for Bach and Mozart for a joyful evening. 

Siobhan Stagg is an outstanding Susanna in a strongly cast and well produced Marriage of Figaro at the Sydney Opera House

Nicole Car makes her role debut as Dvořák's Rusalka in a production by Sarah Giles that proves a winner. 

Danielle de Niese's assumes the title role at the Sydney Opera House, leading an impressive cast with an interesting approach to characterisation with a somewhat over the top blingy setting. 

Bangarra Dance Theatre's 2025 commissioned work reclaims space and offers ambitious visuals, but sacrifices intimacy. 

Elim Chan expertly conducts the SSO through a varied programme featuring an Australian fanfare, Russian ballet music and Brahms' First Piano Concerto with Sir Stephen Hough. 

Neumeier's Nijinsky explores the professional and personal life of the legendary dancer with intense choreography and powerful performances.  

Yaron Lifschitz mesmerises from the opening tableaux’s row of candles in his Purcell staging for Opera Australia, featuring Circa, a Brisbane-based circus company. 

Dean Bryant's production of Leonard Bernstein’s operetta leans more towards musical theatre, blending French period costumes with weak attempts at Aussie humour. 

Emotions on stage are matched by those rising from the pit as Sarah Giles' popular production returns to Sydney. 

A thoroughly enjoyable and brilliantly performed version of Rossini's great comic opera at the Sydney Opera House. 

This abridged version of Massenet's Cendrillon was clearly chosen for a wide Sydney audience, succeeding as a popular offering in the Australian summer holiday season. 

Brimming with festive season joy, the Australian Ballet gives an exuberant performance of a Peter Wright classic: The Nutcracker. 

After so many terrific concerts in the last few months, Petrenko's performance with the SSO does not quite fulfill expectations.

Wotan's predicaments provide Sydney's victory: Chief Conductor Simone Young has her musicians on some of their best form in recent years, with only a few question marks over an excellent concert performance.

The Australian Ballet’s first commissioned full-length work in 20 years, based on the life of Oscar Wilde, fails to fully take flight. 

Opera Australia's well nigh perfect production of Mozart's Così fan tutte excels in every dimension, with an excellent ambiguous conclusion.

80% less of Shakespeare's text adds up to more intensity in Brett Dean's Hamlet as Neil Armfield's staging is mounted by Opera Australia. 

In the run-up to Bastille Day, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra offers an entirely French programme under the baton of Stéphane Denève, with Olivier Latry as organ soloist.

A fine ensemble cast brings Puccini's triptych of one-acters to the Sydney Opera House stage, with stand-out performances from Lauren Fagan, Viktor Antipenko, Simon Meadows and Angela Hogan.

In a perspective-shifting feast of dance, theatre and cinema, Benjamin Millepied's L.A. Dance Project retells Romeo and Juliet in the Sydney Opera House. 

Making her debut on the conductor’s podium, Han-Na Chang’s enthusiastic musicality makes a strong impression at the Sydney Opera House, in Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto no. 2 and Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony.

The Australian Ballet presents a diverse double bill of contemporary and classical dance, including its first major work from choreographer in residence Stephanie Lake. Unfortunately, only the classical piece exhilarates.

Swedish choreographer, Johan Inger, reimagines Carmen for The Australian Ballet, and purports to flip the script on "toxic masculinity" and the 200 year old tale of power and passion.  

A faultless performance of whisper-quiet intimacy alternating with thundering counterpoint as the Icelandic pianist makes his much anticipated Australian debut. 

Can a perfect performance of the stupendous Gurrelieder be anything other than five stars?

A powerful season-opening concert featuring Renaud Capuçon playing the Australian premiere of Camille Pépin's Violin Concerto Le Sommeil a pris ton empreinte. 

Pinchgut Opera presents magnificent music and a timeless ethical debate on faith versus sectarian difference. 

Man of the circus Yaron Lifschitz gives Orpheus and Euridice the Gesamtkunstwerk treatment in his involving production that arrives from Brisbane. 

Sarah Giles' new production replaces Elijah Moshinsky's venerable staging, and the talented cast delivers a successful performance. 

Sydney revels in Joshua Bell's masterful violin playing and leadership of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields on their Australian tour.

Joshua Bell directs the Academy of St Martin in the Fields in lively, well-crafted performances of Prokofiev and Mendelssohn in the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall. 

Damiano Michieletto's imaginative take on Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffmann is lavish fun, with star turns from Jessica Pratt, Iván Ayón Rivas and Marko Mimica.

Despite high quality singing, arresting video cannot replace real direction in Davide Livermore’s digital production.

Could this be the last triumphant outing for the late, great Elijah Moshinksy's moving production of Rigoletto?

The first programme in Stephen Hough's Sydney series sees him offer sensitive but not incandescent Rachmaninov, followed by thrilling performances of Respighi's Roman Trilogy under John Wilson. 

In the last of the LSO's Sydney concerts, Sir Simon Rattle's affinity with Bruckner's score results in a heartfelt performance of the Seventh Symphony.

The LSO opens its three-concert Sydney stay with a panoply of colours and virtuoso orchestral playing in a programme of Adams, Debussy and Ravel, under the masterful leadership of Sir Simon Rattle

In a problematic acoustic environment, the Brodsky Quartet's sound did not always live up to the expectations.

Donald Runnicles demonstrates his superior musicianship in a warm, intelligently crafted reading of Brahms' Symphony no. 2 in D major, with Andrea Lam as a sensitive and reserved soloist in Robert Schumann's Piano Concerto.

The Armenian-Australian soprano steps in for an indisposed Ermonela Jaho in Rosetta Cucchi's staging of Cilea's verismo masterpiece.