Performer: Tommi Hakala

The traditional end of year performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony took on extra significance in this, his 250th anniversary year. 

For any opera house, the production of a new Wagner Ring cycle is a huge undertaking and becomes a mission statement. For Finnish National Opera, its mission is to stage an all-Finnish Ring.

In an unusually convincing concert performance, Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Finnish National Opera emphasised the lyrical aspects of Wagner's Das Rheingold.

Leading five choirs, fine soloists and a glowing Netherlands Philharmonic, conductor Marc Albrecht emphasised the human struggle in a highly dramatic performance of Mahler’s mammoth eighth symphony.

With so little of worth happening onstage, this performance requires a unanimously strong set of performances from the main cast.

Renzetti's traditional rendition does not reveal yet unprecedented details of a score that is the summation of Verdi's mastery and his last work – his third based on Shakespeare.