Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews

Violist Berit Cardas' smiles seemed to sum up the lightness, the exuberance of the Vertavo quartet as they tripped with grace and astonishing technical assurance through four Haydn quartets.

An oriental sweetmeat from the pen of Henri Rabaud, based on a tale from The Arabian Nights, is revived triumphantly in Paris. 

Bartlett Sher's production of Gounod's Romeo et Juliette returns to the Met. 

A pulsing one hour and 40 minutes for young ballet and hip hop dance fans.

An unusual pairing of Tippett and Mahler’s final musical statements in a concert of extraordinary conviction presented by the LSO and their Music Director.

The acting was patchy and the singing ranged from serviceable to laudable in this dazzling new production at the Budapest Spring Festival.

Eschenbach’s command of the orchestra shone most in the Adagio of Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony, where the climaxes brought out the full gravitas of the work.

Unbound by restrictions, they’ve been given free rein to create, implement and demonstrate to the world what contemporary ballet looks like. Hint: it looks great.

In a pasticcio of Hasse’s Artaserse and Ezio, director Balázs Kovalik and the students of the Theaterakademie August Everding stage the life of Wilhelmine von Bayreuth.

Peter Oundjian was at the top of his game with Royal Scottish National Orchestra in Shostakovich and Scriabin.

At its best, Lubovitch's work elevates the spirit and serves as a reminder that there’s beauty in the world.

Laurent Pelly’s staging provided some of the most memorable moments in this performance of Cendrillon. 

Teodor Currentzis and his musicAeterna players from Siberia together with Alexander Melnikov venture into familiar musical territory.

Sneakers gave even the most challenging of balletic steps a freer, looser quality, as if the dancers were about to step into flight.

A night to remember: an exciting Rachmaninov Piano Concerto no. 2 from Gryaznov and a passionate Brahms Symphony no. 1.

Alexandre Bloch and Royal Northern Sinfonia throw down a challenge to any listener who thinks that Brahms is comfortable and easy with a radical reading of his Fourth Symphony.

The director presents the story clearly enough, but apart from that, there is not much going for this production.

Opera North's Salome, conducted by Sir Richard Armstrong at Leeds Town Hall, caught the seductive frenzy of the opera.

Stéphane Denève leads The Philadelphia Orchestra through transcendent Strauss and apocalyptic Ravel.

An animated performance of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto from Radulović along with a gripping account of Rachmaninov's First Symphony makes for a splendid night of Russian fire with the BSO. 

Opera Atelier's return to the earliest part of the repertoire with Monteverdi's Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria showcases their strengths in a relatively restrained production anchored by a strong ensemble cast.

Two new music specialists revel in the sheer textural variation of Kontakte. 

Candide is a witty satiric fable, intelligent, literary but not to a fault, and vastly entertaining. Created by a team of collaborators who fell out at different times in the work’s 52 year history – at one point or another, Lillian Hellman, Richard Wilbur, John Latouche, Dorothy Parker, Stephen Sondheim and, of course, composer Leonard Bernstein had a hand in it – it is unique in the operat

Pianist Alice Sara Ott and the Dresden Philharmonic at the Cologne Philharmonic

Chloë Hanslip and Danny Driver were in tune with each other in every way in this fascinating and entertaining programme inspired by Marcel Proust.

An exemplary cast, an opulent orchestra and unforgettable images in Arnold Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder.

A night to remember in Antwerp as Salonen and the Philharmonia demonstrated once again that, in the right hands, familiar repertory can still prove compelling and even surprising.

In a memorable evening, Jurowski and the LPO presented entirely convincing accounts.

An imperious Barry Douglas provided a magisterial Emperor Concerto in an otherwise disappointing concert from the Czech National Symphony Orchestra.

Three of Kenneth MacMillan's first five works are once more wholly, or partially, revived in this outstanding and purposeful debut for the Viviana Durante Company  

A triumphant night for the CBSO, Harish Shankar and Boris Giltburg, with the mighty Saint-Saëns’ “Organ Symphony” and an inspired performance of Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto no. 3.

The quality cast purred, but glorious roars are required to jolt audiences from placid enjoyment of Opera Australia’s gorgeous 24-year-old production of this Verdi classic.

Three works of different character were given strong, largely persuasive readings by this acclaimed Piano Trio, and impressed with their assurance and commitment.

Would Haydn be the perfect dinner party guest? Witty banter and joyful exchanges characterise the three quartets given at Wigmore Hall as part of its Haydn series.

A wonderful ful-filled caper by the Irish National Opera of Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro with Erraught as Susanna and Miskelly as Cherubino really impressing. 

Pavel Kolesnikov was at the heart and soul of a disappointing concert by the touring Czech orchestra.

Maxim Vengerov and Polina Osetinskaya’s marathon of Brahms sonatas showed off the composer at his most lyrical and dramatic. 

Despite an impressive Elgar concerto with Müller-Schott, it was in the Sibelius symphony that Mälkki fell short. 

The forces of Theater Aachen impress in a suitably harrowing and searing production of Poulenc's Dialogues des Carmèlites.

Many scenes could risk to be particularly disturbing,  but their overt brutality appeared functional, to the structure of the drama. A dark, gloomy story as unambiguously told as it should be.

In the future features exciting works by Juanjo Arques and Hans van Manen, and is the most exciting programme by the Junior Company so far.

The use in the score of ancient musical instruments is what differentiates this work: pifferi, a lute, a “viola pomposa” give this work a distinctive flavour.

A random assortment of disassociated ballets performed with variable success - from the sublime to the nondescript. 

Ivor Bolton and David McVicar have teamed up to create an unapologetically Brittenian Gloriana, with Anna Caterina Antonacci at the top of a great cast

Jonathan Bloxham steps in for a presumably unwell Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla with the CBSO in Cardiff. 

Breezy Ravel from Steven Osborne and a clear warning about the dangers of drug-taking from the BBCSSO at Sage Gateshead.

Members of the GöteborgsOperans dance company, along with members of choreographer Sidu Larbi Cherkaoui’s own Eastman ensemble, recently danced a joint venture of an extraordinary kind in Winterthur. 

In Minneapolis, Markus Stenz and Louis Lortie present time-honored Austro-German symphonic masterpieces in committed and compelling performances.

Ceresa’s flamboyant production from the Festival della Valle d’Itria is revived in Venice with a strong cast under the baton of Diego Fasolis.

Two monumental works by Rzewski and Mahler performed with intensity, drama and authority by Igor Levit in a concert celebrating Frederic Rzewski's 80th birthday.