En direct, Vidéo: Rechercher des critiques de musique classique, opéra et ballet | Conal Coad

Rossini's opera is all about art and art lovers in this production by Damiano Michieletto.

Charming and hilarious by turn, this production fields a largely young and Kiwi cast.

New Zealand Opera continues to strongly advocate Czech works, resulting in a gripping Káťa Kabanová.

At the opera’s great climaxes Suffolk’s famous wood-and-brick building could barely contain it.

Roberto Abbado's precise conducting made the score tingle with life. The magical glissandi were full of mystery, the hotbed of musical detail cleanly communicated and the amorous outbursts treated with Italianate ardour.

Chinese dragons, Dalek-like pagoda towers: Opera Australia's harbour-side production of Turandot did not shy away from oriental imagery, leading to a spectacular evening's entertainment.

One’s upbringing to respect the elderly is challenged in a farcical, not so far-fetched family matter in Opera Australia’s Don Pasquale.

Opera Australia's laugh-out-loud production of Il Turco in Italia (“The Turk in Italy”) by Rossini at the Sydney Opera House combines vocal excellence and strong characterisation.

‘To lose one singer, Mr Terracini, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose two, one of them in the title role, looks like … a disaster’. Such were the thoughts running through my head when the Artistic Director of Opera Australia made the pre-performance announcement.

In a sense, the plot of Don Pasquale is timeless: it concerns an old man who comes between young lovers and meets his comeuppance.

The Bartered Bride, premiered in 1866, is considered to be Smetana’s masterpiece in the operatic genre and is widely regarded as the national opera of the Czech Republic. Despite this, for their second and last production this year, New Zealand Opera elected to perform the opera in English translation rather than the original Czech, aiming to speak to their audiences in a more direct fashion.

From the opening bars of the Overture of Opera Australia’s production of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro it was clear that this was going to be a production with a difference. As the orchestra began, the curtain raised to reveal a room, painted in brilliant white, with clothes rails at either end containing maids’ costumes.