En direct, Vidéo: Rechercher des critiques de musique classique, opéra et ballet | Adrian Dwyer

Tchaikovsky's final opera and ballet were always intended to be paired; at the Royal Albert Hall Petrenko and the RPO present them together in a rewarding double-bill, marred by microphones.

Rodula Gaitanou sets Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal's comedy in the Cinecittà film studios of the 1950s. 

 Longborough Festival Opera’s ongoing Ring cycle returns to its fully staged form with a triumphant new Siegfried.

Ivor Bolton and Kit Hesketh-Harvey deliver a brilliant political thriller and anti-Putin polemic – at least for its first half.

Almost 30 years since its last run, Gerald Barry’s The Intelligence Park makes a boisterous return to the stage. 

It’s a small miracle that the production has been recreated so well in such a short time frame.

WNO make a compelling case for Prokofiev's gargantuan War and Peace.

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

Top accolades go to soprano Mary Plazas, whose Duchess was at once despicable for her sense of entitlement and her racist and anti-Semitic views, and heartbreakingly vulnerable with her realisation at the end that "the only people who were ever good to me were paid for it".

Welsh National Opera’s new season commemorating the centenary of the 1917 Revolution with three Russian-themed works opens with both a bang and a whimper with this trenchant revival.

Strong casting but intrusive direction makes this Fidelio a bizarrely intriguing experience, salvaged by some memorable singing. 

Clever staging and a high standard of acting does much to happily while away the three hours of this baroque opera in the second of ETO's Baroque extravaganza.

English National Opera’s first staging of Bellini’s bel canto masterpiece is a musical and dramatic triumph.

Calixto Bieito’s new production of Verdi’s The Force of Destiny for English National Opera is – for him – a tame affair. 

Gustave Charpentier's Louise, revived and in excellent form at the Buxton Festival.

Swanhunter is a fine retelling of a wonderful yarn, and this rendering of it contains a great deal to enjoy for an audience of all ages, albeit marred by inconsistent intelligibity.

New Sussex Opera's warm-hearted community production of Oberon took on Weber's sprawlingly chaotic final opera - and won. 

Keri-Lynn Wilson produces an outstanding UK conducting debut in Richard Jones' faithful production of Puccini's Girl of the Golden West for ENO.

A feast of Strauss and Elgar delights all in Prom 19, featuring Vasily Petrenko, Inger Dam-Jensen, and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.

Paul Bunyan is something of an oddity in Benjamin Britten’s oeuvre; a satirical operetta (with a libretto by W.H. Auden) about pioneers in America who are led by a gigantic lumberjack. 

In his production of Fidelio for English National Opera, director Calixto Bieito sets out to completely contradict the work’s central tenet.

Military service brutalises. If you’re in any doubt about this, Berg’s short opera Wozzeck should dispel them, and particularly so in Carrie Cracknell’s new production for ENO.

Alfredo Catalani's La Wally is the last of three rarely performed Italian operas from the late 19th century verismo period to feature in Opera Holland Park's 2011 season. Catalani belongs to group of composers whose place in the modern repertoire suffers from the problem of "not being Puccini," the more poignantly since he was born in Puccini's home town of Lucca.