Performer: John Tessier

The thrills of Tudor (pseudo-)history and bel canto expressivity combine in the second of Donizetti's “Three Queens” operas, Maria Stuarda, making its company debut at Seattle Opera.

Despite mostly solid work from soloists and chorus, several ensemble problems and overall stylistic decisions diminished this performance's success.

Uneven musical values mar Seattle Opera's colourful production of Bizet's Les pêcheurs de perles.

A performance of Wagner’s epic Tristan und Isolde, a testimony for all-enduring love, is a welcome event anywhere in the world. 

It is a myth that pearls can be formed from grit and so it proved here, where a vastly underwhelming musical performance sullied a much improved production of Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers. 

Britten's Spring Symphony and Ryan Wigglesworth's Locke's Theatre join with Rudolf Buchbinder's thrilling account of Rachmaninov's Rhapsody, all conducted, at short notice, by Brett Mitchell, Franz Welser-Möst's assistant.