En direct, Vidéo: Rechercher des critiques de musique classique, opéra et ballet | Dmitri Hvorostovsky

Would a younger soprano taking the role of Tatyana blur Kasper Holten's "dancing doubles" vision of Eugene Onegin at the Royal Opera House?

Last night’s performance, the second after a serious casting face-lift held to that tradition, and was very well received despite its inherent flaws, thanks to some very fine singing.

A great deal of the audience were in the house for La traviata last night for the chance to see Diana Damrau and Dmitri Hvorostovsky. They will not have been disappointed: these were performances of the very highest quality by two very fine singers, with Francesco Demuro all but matching them.

At the cloakroom, it was already clear that this evening was not going to be standard fare at the Staatsoper. Russian was in the air, and Russians had bought their fair share of the tickets to this completely sold out event: wearing extravagant gowns, sporting elegant hairstyles and reserving bottles of champagne for the interval. There was plenty of Russian fare on the programme too.

Read our review of Willy Decker's production of Verdi's La Traviata in its 2012 broadcast from the Met Opera in New York.

I thought it ironic to hear people saying that the Met’s recent production of Two Boys was already outdated because of its ten-year-old subject: Internet chatrooms.

There were some not-to-be-missed performances last evening in Verdi’s Otello at the Staatsoper.Dmitri Hvorostovsky is a god amongst men whose interpretation of Iago, Otello’s villainous ensign, was completely on the mark. Resplendent in his white ponytail, black leather and tattoos, he completely embodied the treacherous scoundrel bent on Otello’s destruction.

On Wednesday night Washington Performing Arts Society at the Kennedy Center hosted a Russian art song recital of the internationally acclaimed Russian baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky and his longtime concert partner, Estonian pianist Ivari Ilya. As the audience’s excitement about seeing this renowned recitalist was building up, it was disappointing to see quite a few empty seats in the house.

Verdi experts regularly name Un ballo in maschera to be one of his finest works. In spite of this, it’s never reached the heights of popularity of La Traviata or Rigoletto, so a new production by an acclaimed director for a major opera house is a notable event. We watched David Alden’s New York Ballo from the comfort of a London cinema under the Met’s Live in HD series.

Read our review of David Alden’s production of Verdi­'s Un Ballo in Maschera in its 2012 broadcast from the Met Opera in New York. 

Across town the Proms were sounding their final hurrah for another year, but Wigmore Hall opened their 2012/13 season with an altogether more serious repertoire of Rachmaninov and Shostakovich songs.

Read our review of Pier Luigi Samaritani's production of Verdi's Ernani in its 2012 broadcast from the Met Opera in New York.

In this Royal Opera production of Gounod's Faust, there's no question about who's in charge. Not only does the devil get all the best lines, but he bosses the show from beginning to end. Clad in feathered hat, long curly wig and reminiscent of the Laughing Cavalier, René Pape plays Mephistopheles quite superbly, alternating between mercurial bouffe comic lines and extreme sardonic nastiness.

Read our review of David McVicar's production of Verdi's Il Trovatore in its 2011 broadcast from the Met Opera in New York.

Read our review of Robert Carsen's production of  Pushkin­'s Onegin in its 2007 broadcast from the Met Opera in New York.