Performer: Teodor Currentzis

Romeo Castellucci's intense production of Bartók's opera reaps its rewards in the performance under Teodor Currentzis, but Carl Orff's opera-oratorio De temporum fine comoedia feels little more than a drab filler. 

Teodor Currentzis, conducting the SWR Symphony Orchestra, and Yulianna Avdeeva do Prokofiev proud in his Third Piano Concerto and Fifth Symphony: all the colours of the rainbow delivered with sophistication, élan and boundless effervescence.

The pairing of controversial director and bad-boy conductor brings some thrills but the Salzburg Festival's new Don Giovanni proves disappointingly uninvolving. 

An all-day Beethoven experience European style with both highs and lows: much diversity revealed and exploited but of variable quality.

Say what you like, Teodor Currentzis understands the music of Mahler, especially in that composer's final symphonic statement, to the manner born.

In Currentzis' vision, Verdi's Requiem was both a spectacle and a soul-searching exercise for the musicians, as well as for the listeners.