Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Götterdämmerung: Dawn

A celebration of composer, soloist and orchestral excellence in an eclectic, if slightly eccentric, gala opening program to launch the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra's 2018 season.

Christian Thielemann, the Staatskapelle Dresden and a star-studded cast compress Wagner's Ring cycle into a tale of Siegmund, Sieglinde, Hunding and Brünnhilde.

The concluding concert in the Amsterdammers’ brief Barbican residency mixed youthful promise with a programme that seemed to sum up 2016’s angst and fears.

Martha Argerich shows her star quality in an extraordinary, intimate rendering of Liszt's First Piano Concerto; the West-Eastern Divan orchestra make a big political statement in performing Wagner.

A superlative performance of Shostakovich first violin concerto by Kavakos and lush textures in Gergiev's Wagner turned tonight's concert in a highpoint of the RCO's season.

After a concert last week made inaudible by thunder and a very heavy rain storm, The Cleveland Orchestra and its music director Franz Welser-Möst returned to Blossom Music Center this past Saturday in much more auspicious circumstances – a gorgeous, warm, non-humid evening – for a generous helping of excerpts from the operas of Richard Wagner, in celebration of that composer’s bicentenary.

The Wagner bicentennial marches on, bringing grand sounds from practically every corner of the musical earth. What appear most frequently on concert programs are various extracts from the operas, such as the collection of preludes, overture, and vocal and orchestral excerpts offered by the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Daniele Gatti at Carnegie Hall.

Juanjo Mena launched the BBC Philharmonic’s season with an all-Wagner programme which, despite some small faults, featured some excellent playing.The main issue was soprano Brigitte Hahn’s projection, particularly in the Götterdämmerung finale.