Rechercher des critiques de musique classique, opéra et ballet | Ashley Riches

Un formidable plateau était réuni sur la scène du Théâtre des Champs-Élysées pour une version de concert de l'opéra de Haendel, sous la direction rythmiquement univoque de Christophe Rousset.

Au Festival Berlioz, Sir John Eliot Gardiner dirige une éclatante production de Benvenuto Cellini, avec un grand Michael Spyres et une intelligente mise en espace de Noa Naamat.

Pour la dernière soirée du Spitalfields Music Summer Festival, programme Haydn/J.C. Bach/Mozart/Haendel à Shoreditch Church, par le City of London Sinfonia et le chœur Polyphony dirigés par Stephen Layton : une clôture de festival réussie.

Das überaus farbenreich spielende Freiburger Barockorchester bot eine tief bewegende Aufführung von Händels Messiah.

To mark the 150th anniversary of the composer's death, Sir John Eliot Gardiner conducts the opera charting the escapades of the Italian goldsmith and sculptor. 

Ein historischer Berlioz-Triumph für das ORR, den Monteverdi Choir und die Solisten, nur ein Hammerschlag vor beziehungsweise zu viel der Absolutheit. Berlioz kurios!

Wolf-Ferrari's Il segreto di Susanna provides an airy bon-bouche to Tchaikovsky's Iolanta, brilliantly sung by Natalya Romaniw and David Butt Philip and conducted to fairy-tale perfection by Sian Edwards

Christopher Purves bosses the show as Méphistophélès; Richard Jones' production is intelligent and carefully thought through but ultimately unconvincing.

Mark-Anthony Turnage's First World War opera both moves and dazzles at the Barbican.

A semi-staged Dido from the Academy of Ancient Music and the speculative funeral music for a queen.

Even if Hubert Parry was overshadowed by Holst and Vaughan Williams, this was a splendid concert of British music. 

A resounding success at its 1709 première, Handel’s Agrippina gripped the ear and dazzled the eye at the Grange Festival in a hugely entertaining and powerful performance.

Despite the longueurs of the piece, this performance of Solomon was pretty much perfect. 

Fiona Shaw's production doesn't always get everything right, but Lucy Crowe's debut as the Countess is the defining success of the this revival.

Cast and choir snaked and kicked their legs through the aisles of the hall – picking up audience members along the way – leading to a riotous on-stage dance.

An unapologetic treat at the Proms and a composition of immediate appeal.

In a concert of two halves, Worcester Cathedral experiences unforgettable pain and pleasure in works by Strauss, Rasch and Janáček.

Mozart's Don Giovanni is transported by director Oliver Platt to The Queen Mary in the 1930s. It looks handsome enough, but the concept is flawed.

There’s nothing new or inventive about Leigh’s revived production, which in itself is not a crime, but neither is there an abundance of energy; it's all a bit nice. 

6 aus 6: Alle Kantaten überzeugen jeweils mit Betonung der instrumentalen Besonderheit, Strenge, Frische, schreitendem Atem, Klarheit und Festlichkeit.

Eschewing conventions throughout, Daisy Evans' production of The Fairy Queen walks boldly out of the woods into an exciting future for opera staging.

...ein fulminantes Comeback bei den Berlinern, das hoffentlich neue fruchtbare Basis für künftige Zusamenarbeiten ist.

The Academy of Ancient Music gave a finely honed account of Handel's unusual "little opera", written for the Earl of Carnavon's household musicians: a sweet pastoral offering never yet out of the repertoire. 

John Eliot Gardiner assembled the Monteverdi Choir and the English Baroque Soloists for a moving performance of JS Bach's great oratorio.

Despite some fine singing, Benedict Andrew's production of La bohème for English National Opera is devoid of heart. 

A successful concert hall Rake's Progress at the Edinburgh International Festival with an impressively strong cast of singers, Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Royal Conservatoire Voices under Sir Andrew Davis.

Weddings bring out the cynic in me. They also bring out the cynic in Don Alfonso and it’s at a wedding breakfast that John Fulljames sets his production of Così fan tutte. 

At carnival time, Cavalli’s mission was to make his audience laugh, wow them with a bit of vocal gymnastics, butter up their romantic feelings with a few delicate cadences, and maybe leave a tear or two in their eye. It’s a potent formula, and it still works.

An operatic thiller? Can such a thing exist? With an edgy score, Søren Nils Eichberg’s opera Glare tries hard to convince, at least initially.

If you want to have your operatic head seriously messed with, imagine the following: Così fan tutte staged on the Act I/IV set of John Copley’s soon-to-be-mothballed La bohème, which closed with a double performance on Saturday afternoon and evening. Throw in Don Alfonso sporting frock coat, wig and cane, looking for all the world like Baron Scarpia, and the mash-up of references had my head spinning.

As revivals go, Karita Mattila and Jane Archibald make the Royal Opera's Ariadne auf Naxos a must-see.

There is something pleasurably straining, for the big-hall, velvet-accustomed operagoer, about the experience of sitting for three hours on a very tiny bench in a charmingly chiselled, candlelit little theatre that invites contemplation in its own right – beyond the attractions, musical and other, set up within its frame.

For sheer dramatic potential, let alone the beauty of its music, Daniel Purcell’s The Judgement of Paris is a rare find. In this celebratory performance at St John’s Smith Square, this long-lost opera sparkles at us across the silent centuries. 

From Studio to Stage was the name of this year’s summer performance by young artists on the Jette Parker programme at the Royal Opera House. The programme includes not only singers but also conductors/répétiteurs, a pianist, a lighting designer and stage director Pedro Ribeiro, who surely wins the prize for best headshot.

The 60th anniversary of Her Majesty’s Coronation has prompted much festivity and reminiscence. To be on the throne for such a long time is a remarkable achievement, and to be almost as active as ever in carrying out royal duties 60 years on even more so; events such as the service of celebration at Westminster Abbey, and the many Coronation-related television and radio broadcasts, have provided an

Among the brilliant programming of The Rest is Noise festival in London, there was one concert this year that stood above all the others for me: the European première of Shostakovich’s opera prologue Orango. First discovered in an archive in 2004 by scholar Olga Digonskaya, Orango was never finished by Shostakovich, and indeed only a piano score remained.

Britten’s only Shakespeare opera was a last-minute commission to celebrate the opening of the refurbished Jubilee Hall at the 1960 Aldeburgh Festival. Despite the narrow timescale, Britten and his collaborator and partner Peter Pears notoriously strove to adhere to the sixteen-century dramatic text as closely as possible. Only a handful of Shakespeare’s original lines were substantially modified.

Donizetti’s one act opera, Rita, composed in 1841 formed the first half of last night’s double bill at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. The second half comprised another late work, Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta, composed in 1891 to a libretto by Tchaikovsky’s brother, Modest. Rita turns out to be far more entertaining than the plot outline promises and deserves to be more widely seen.