En direct, Vidéo: Rechercher des critiques de musique classique, opéra et ballet | Matti Salminen

There's little to like in Andrea Moses' production, but a fine cast and glorious playing and conducting make for an enthralling performance of Wagner's grand comedy.  

Not even the musical genius of Daniel Barenboim could turn Harry Kupfer’s irritating Sitzprobe production into a “Namenlose Freude”.

Renaissance trifft Moderne, trifft Industriezeitalter. Der Münchner Holländer hat schrille Kontraste zu bieten, bevor er schließlich mit krachender Pyrotechnik endet.

The revival of Das Rheingold at Staatsoper Berlin was still marred by distracting use of dancers on stage, but musically it was a great success. 

Matti Salminen and conductor Leif Segerstam come together, probably for the last time, to give us an excellent evening's opera which touched the heart of Boris Godunov – a Finnish swan song as potent as anything penned by Sibelius.

With elegant sets and superlative musicianship, Verdi came to life in the House where he is revered most. This musical feast will have us licking our lips for some time yet.

Nina Stemme's domination of the heaviest dramatic soprano repertoire continues with an outstanding Isolde at the Zurich Opera House, ably assisted by Stephen Gould, Matti Salminen, and other notable performers under John Fiore.

Daniel Harding and the London Symphony Orchestra again paired Schubert with a late Romantic, this time Richard Wagner, and the second act of Tristan und Isolde. The orchestra were on a form it would be hard to match.

Opera being a strongly visual art form as well as a musical one, the idea of a pure concert performance seems a little strange to those unfamiliar with the form.

There’s something relentlessly dark about Verdi’s Don Carlo. King Philippe and his son, the eponymous Don Carlo, are both very troubling characters, the former power-hungry and vengeful, the latter plagued by desire for his stepmother.

Read our review of Dieter Dorn's production of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde in its 2008 broadcast from the Met Opera in New York.