Performer: Wookyung Kim

At the Seoul Arts Center, Jaap van Zweden treats Beethoven’s disputed metronome marks less as provocation than instruction, trading bloom for voltage in a driven Beethoven Ninth Symphony.

The Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra gives a patrician performance of Verdi’s Macbeth and Scott Hendricks is riveting in Andrea Breth’s claustrophobic exploration of oppression and derangement.

A successful production for a scandalous opera which exercised a broad influence on the musical theatre of the 20th century.

Mozart wrote 20 operas during his relatively short life, the first being performed in Salzburg in 1767, when the composer was just eleven years old. However, it is Idomeneo, written and premièred when Mozart was the ripe old age of 25, which is usually considered to be his first mature opera.The opera takes place on the island of Crete immediately after the Trojan War.

Rigoletto is what an opera promoter might describe as a "banker": it's a safe bet to get those seats filled and keep the audience happy. There's a rare blend of gorgeously beautiful music allied to darkly nasty drama that gives the opera enormous, continuing appeal.

Tobias Kratzer inszeniert Verdis La forza del destino als schockierende und unbequeme Gesellschaftskritik.