En direct, Vidéo: Rechercher des critiques de musique classique, opéra et ballet | John Ramster

Bergen National Opera’s new production allows the story to speak to itself, while strong performances from Eric Halfvarson and Elisabeth Teige gave the performance its edge.

Superb singing and skilful acting make a good case for Radamisto in a conceptually ambitious new production which, while not entirely successful, is well worth seeing. 

The early Handel opera Agrippina is given a rare and playful outing at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland with clear Italian singing, joyous Baroque playing and lively stage production.

In Shoreditch, the Royal Academy of Music showed off some superb singing in a chilling exploration of tyranny and unrestrained power.

At the Theatre Royal Stratford East, the student group made a convincing case for the French version of this gripping work.

Does the devil get the best tunes? Nick Shadow steals the show in the Royal Academy's production of The Rake's Progress.

Drawing a line of suffering from ancient Rome to Golgotha to the concentration camps, Britten’s blank postcard from Belsen strikes to the heart of humanity. The Rape of Lucretia is brilliantly realised by the Royal Academy of Music.

The Royal Academy of Music tonight presented the fruits of their latest postgraduate opera course with two short operas representing opposite ends of the musical timeline.Purcell’s miniature three-act opera really needs no introduction.

For an opera school production, it's a good idea to choose a classic: something that will focus the audience on the quality of the singers and orchestra rather than on innovation in the piece or programming.

Turning great novels into opera isn't a new idea - consider Prokofiev's War and Peace or Massenet's Werther - but it can be a tricky business: opera thrives on pace and high drama, while the greatest novels have time and space for reflection and character development.

A handful of times in operatic history, a composer has thrown away the rule book and produced a work which defies categorisation because it simply isn't like anything else in the repertoire. Kurt Weill's Die Dreigroschenoper is one such work: musically and dramatically, neither Weill himself or anyone else has ever written anything remotely similar.