Iván Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra gave a lesson in ethnomusicology as part of the their all-Bartók programme, which culminated in a towering performance of Bluebeard's Castle.
A classic production of Strauss' searing operatic depiction of the House of Atreus is revived with a particularly accomplished cast and musical direction.
Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande is beautifully realised in Claus Guth's now classic production, revived with a new cast of principals at Oper Frankfurt.
Despite a much reduced orchestra and a slightly awkward staging, New Sussex Opera's production of Delius's A Village Romeo and Juliet still gave us the chance to wallow in a glorious late-Romantic score.
Lothar Koenigs conducted the BBC Symphony Orchestra in some highly horizontal-oriented Bruckner and the UK première of a genial piano concerto from Wolfgang Rihm with soloist Nicolas Hodges
This spring the Austrian city of Linz is encompassing the world. Or rather worlds: worlds of celestial harmony and of dreams characterise two operas being mounted by Landestheater Linz.
Savonlinna’s contribution to the centenary has been to commission a new work from the country’s senior operatic composer, Aulis Sallinen. Not an opera per se in this case, but what he describes as a “chronicle for speaker, four singers, orchestra and Olavinlinna”.
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.
Laurent Pelly exploits the satirical side of Rimsky-Korsakov's The Golden Cockerel at La Monnaie in a darkly humorous but colourfully performed production.
The Staatenhaus venue forces one too many compromises on Bernstein's operetta, but the performance itself is saved by the accomplishment of much of the singing.
The first UK production of Karl Amadeus Hartmann’s 1930s anti-war opera Simplicius Simplicissimus is a musical and dramatic triumph, and as pertinent as ever
