Performer: Deborah Polaski

A group of excellent singers and the Orchestra of St Luke's led by Will Crutchfield succeeded in presenting a moving concert performance of Poulenc's gut-wrenching opera.

The music makes this an enchanting Die Frau ohne Schatten, even if Warlikowski’s fantastical production remains an unsolved puzzle.

A revival of the new production of Die Frau ohne Schatten at the Munich Opera Festival brings back four of the principals in a brilliantly sung performance of Richard Strauss' masterpiece.

Robert Carsen’s production is an exercise in extreme minimalism. Dialogues des Carmélites is a great opera, and this production touches greatness without quite grasping it in both hands. 

Never a city to shy away from seasonal programming, this Easter Vienna is offering productions of Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites, Gounod’s Faust, and Wagner’s Parsifal. The latter two, at the Staatsoper, are familiar, but audiences should run to see the Theater an der Wien’s enthralling revival of Poulenc’s relatively rarely-produced masterwork.