Professional Reviews

“Sinéad O’Neill’s production is persuasive and Beth Taylor’s performace as Orlando is extraordinary in this tale of unrequited love, madness and magic”

“This stripped-down show with a maudlin set of songs makes for the most reluctant of musicals, but this is a production that has the confidence to be silent or stately”

“There are drop-dead gorgeous designs and the performances are full of life but this off-kilter escapade has scattershot gags and unmemorable songs”

“Louisa Muller’s richly detailed production of Verdi’s tragedy is elevated by Madison Leonard’s magnetic Violetta and Douglas Boyd’s musical direction that reinvigorates the familiar score”

“(Photo: Jan Windszus Photography) With “Orlando,” Olga Neuwirth has not simply written an opera based on a Virginia Woolf novel, but a sprawling epic that seeks to be everything at once: a parable on gender, a cultural-historical chronicle, a political warning, a queer manifesto, a critique of the media, and a musical panorama of Western modernity. From the very beginning, one senses the immense ambition of this undertaking – and at the same time its struggles to master this en”

“(Photo: Mihaela Bodlovic) I made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t again mention this year that opera should always be more about the music and the singing than the staging. Alas, I find myself having to break that promise after sitting through the revival of Richard Jones’s 2022 production of “Samson et Dalila” at the Royal Ballet and Opera. Given that composer Saint-Saëns intended it to be an oratorio, rather than a staged opera, it was always going to present problems for any di”

“(Photo: Wiener Staatsoper Michael Poehn) Premiered in 1863, “Les Pêcheurs de perles” is one of Georges Bizet’s earliest operas, composed more than a decade before his masterpiece “Carmen.” Set on the exoticized shores of ancient Ceylon, it combines lush lyricism with themes of friendship, desire, and betrayal. Though initially overshadowed by Bizet’s later success, the opera has gradually earned recognition for its brilliant orchestration and emotionally charg”

“Martin Lloyd-Evans’s credible production roots the action in time and place. Amanda Echalaz is a richly drawn and touching Minnie and conductor Matthew Kofi Waldren adds colour and drama”

“Prospero is reimagined as a conductor in this superbly orchestrated version of Shakespeare’s tragicomedy”

“(Photo: Michael Cooper) French operas of the nineteenth century were once among the most popular works in the repertoire, but in the last half century, they’ve fallen out of fashion. One reason is the loss of national singing schools, especially the French, in a now globalized opera world. Without an understanding of the French style, and without the required elegance and clear diction, for the audience these operas are a painful exercise in dated mannerisms or more commonly, sadly generic piece”

“(Photo credit: Mara Bratoš / HNK Zagreb) According to a diary entry by Richard Wagner’s wife Cosima, in January 1883 – three weeks before his death – the composer thought he still owed his “Tannhäuser” to the world. To his mind, this “große romantische Oper,” first performed in Dresden in 1845, had never acquired a definitive form. The Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb has owed “Tannhäuser” to its audience since October 1931, when the final performance of the 1930 production took place. In all”

“(Photo: @Vivien Gaumand) “Carmen” is one of the most perfect operas in the repertoire. It features an inspired setting, a marvelous orchestration, spirited vocal parts, and most of all, intense drama. It was highly admired by no less than Gustav Mahler, who championed the work while Director of the Vienna Court Opera. It’s thought of as an indestructible work, a glorious stage success, no matter how it’s served: a mezzo or a soprano Carmen; spoken dialogue or sung recitatives; set in”

“The Drag Race star brings nuance to the vocals and has a hoot with a frisky script but this bio-drama is too limited and ultimately cramps her style”

“The Monteverdi Choir’s account of Purcell’s opera was delivered with devastating clarity, but it was somewhat smothered beneath a 200ft ship’s hull”

“Ryan Calais Cameron’s play dramatises a real meeting the film star had in the 1950s that became a moral reckoning”

“Caitlin Gotimer’s Tosca goes from 0-60 in mere moments while the London Philharmonic unlock the barely contained violence in Ted Huffman’s long-awaited exceptional staging”

“(Photo: Cassandra Hannagan) Is it possible to reduce the scale of Wagner’s mammoth operas? A “yes” answer clearly underlies Jonathan Dove and Graham Vick’s digest of “The Ring,” Wagner’s four-opera epic. Let’s face it, Wagner’s “Ring” in its original form is nothing less than an account of the unbalancing of the world and the efforts over a series of long nights in the theater by a procession of gods, demigods and human heroes to restore that balance or at least escape the curse that”

“(Jonathan Tichler / Met Opera) On May 19, the Metropolitan Opera revived Puccini’s “Turandot” for the second time in the season. Known for its epic score and its famed melodies, the opera remains a favorite with Met audiences especially due to Franco Zeffirelli’s production. For this second run, the Met assembled a cast of powerhouses that on paper seemed right for the roles, but on stage lacked chemistry and energy. Maximalism Before I get to the singers, I have to menti”

“Lindsay Posner’s precise revival flies highest in its most intense moments of beastliness as a psychiatrist sets about ridding a teenage boy of his demons”

“The fully staged production of “West Side Story” by the Washington National Opera (WNO) at Lyric Baltimore is an example of turning a disaster into a great success. Making a calculated and difficult decision, WNO decided to take the company out of the former Kennedy Center. Unlike City Opera in New York, WNO’s decision was a moral choice, not a fiscal one, as it would have been financially more practical to remain at the ‘Trump-Kennedy’ Center. Instead it has designed a s”

“Forgoing Brecht’s usual distanciation, Anna Jordan’s new translation and Michelle Terry’s lovable performance bring out the humanity of a woman doing what’s necessary to keep herself and her family alive”

“The Opéra National de Paris is in the midst of a revival of Robert Carson’s incredible production of “Rusalka.” Coming-of-Age The production itself is minimalist in its set design. The opening scene features a mirror effect with a bed hanging over the stage. On ground level, there’s a central pool and we see four figures asleep alongside it. Sleep becomes a major motif throughout the production. Sleep is both a literal manifestation of our consciousness’ ignorance t”

“This revival of the carnivorous plant caper showcases strong voices, incorporates playful designs and splits Audrey II in two”

“(Photo: Ken Howard / Met Opera) The Metropolitan Opera presented this season’s “La Traviata” with a second cast on May 6th, 2026 for its 1,066th performance of Verdi’s masterpiece. Conductor Marco Armiliato led the cast of all-stars including soprano Ermonela Jaho as Violetta Valéry, Edyta Kulczak as Flora Bervoix, Jeongcheol Cha as Marques D’Obigny, Dwayne Croft as Baron Douphol (Graduate of the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program), Paul Corona as Dr. Grenvil, Sco”

“The dissolute aristocrats from 1895 remain sharply funny, and bitingly relevant, in this flamboyant new spin”

“(Photo: ©2026 Tristram Kenton) If you have ever visited to the Suffolk seaside town of Aldeburgh, where Benjamin Britten lived, and which inspired his 1945 opera “Peter Grimes” – based on George Crabbe’s poem “The Borough” – then you will surely remember the remarkable views from the sea front: vast, empty skies, sunlight blazing on the water like a purifying fire, and a bleak, flat countryside, punctuated by marsh, inlet, and reedbed. “I am rooted here”, the eponymous (anti)hero of ”

“As the central couple, SeokJong Baek and Aigul Akhmetshina are dramatically persuasive and expressive in this revival of Richard Jones’s staging that works hard to make Saint-Saëns’ often dramatically inert opera zing”

“(Photo: © Camille Rovera/Opéra de Marseille) The Opéra de Marseille’s new production of Wagner’s “Das Rheingold” marks the first staging of one of the Ring operas in France’s second-largest city since 1996. Its success augurs well for the tenure of the company’s talented young music director, Michele Spotti. Gold, Power and the Rheinbank Charles Roubaud’s staging is modern yet eminently accessible. The curtain rises about a minute into the prelude to reveal the vault of the vaguely postwar “Rhei”

“(Credit: Stefan Cohen) Music Director and Conductor Gianandrea Noseda of the National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) took to Carnegie Hall’s infamous podium on Sunday, May 3, 2026 for an enlightening and entertaining evening featuring Giacomo Puccini’s “Il trittico.” The all-star cast included soprano Erika Grimaldi, soprano Meryl Dominguez, mezzo-soprano Agnieszka Rehlis, tenor Hakeem Henderson, tenor Gregory Kunde, baritone Roman Burdenko and the Washington Chorus with direct”

“  First performed in 1846, “La Damnation de Faust” remains one of Hector Berlioz’s most audacious and elusive works: neither fully opera nor oratorio, but a hybrid “dramatic legend” that defies conventional staging and genre. Drawing on Goehte’s “Faust” while filtering the story through Berlioz’s intensely Romantic imagination, the piece moves with feverish speed from pastoral lyricism to infernal spectacle, demanding considerable forces and emotional range from perf”

“(Photo: Monika Rittershaus / La Scala) “Opera sings too much” provocatively declared a barely thirty-year-old Claude Debussy shortly before revolutionizing the concept of lyric theater in France with what would become his only operatic work: “Pelléas et Mélisande.” A work built upon silences, allusions, and a circular sense of time: a fable situated outside reality. The result was not what many had expected, as often happens with masterpieces, misunderstood in their own time. Contemp”

“Even among the notoriously thin plots of musicals, this one feels particularly underfed – though Natalie Bassingthwaighte does a reasonable job”

“(Credit: Daniel Dittus) Leonardo García Alarcón has already established an impressive track record in early North Italian opera, with his acclaimed “Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria” at the 2024 Aix-en-Provence Festival and his masterful Cavalli’s “Pompeo Magno” at Bayreuth in 2025. His interpretation with Cappella Mediterranea and the Chœur de Chambre de Namur was imbued with the freshness and vitality of a sunrise; under his baton, this first great masterpiece ”

“As the tormented fisherman, Allan Clayton currently has few rivals. He is matched by a superb cast in this gripping revival of Britten’s opera”

“Bach’s “Mass in B Minor,” early music authentically performed on period instruments is alive and well thanks to the Washington Bach Consort. The “Mass in B Minor,” among Johann Sebastian Bach’s greatest achievements, was presented in concert on April 26, 2026 at 4:00 PM. This was an ideal time to appreciate the beauty of the music and the National Presbyterian Church’s stained-glass window design and vibrant colors. The ‘sold out’ performances, Saturday and Sunday, receiv”

“(Photo: Toni Suter) Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote “La clemenza di Tito” in 1791, the year of his death, to celebrate the coronation of Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor, as King of Bohemia. The libretto, adapted from Metastasio, celebrates the Roman Emperor Tito as a magnanimous and forgiving ruler; this was particularly apt for the enlightened monarch Leopold, who governed through compromise and applied several principles of the Enlightenment, abolishing torture, confiscation of proper”

“(Credit: Javier de Real) Some operas carry the weight of national myth—and that weight can obstruct a purely musical experience. Smetana’s “The Bartered Bride” is very much one of them. When it was first performed in Prague in 1866, the Czech nation had no state of its own, and this first opera in the Czech language became something far greater than entertainment or musical theatre: it was a declaration, a self-presentation to the world. Its exuberance, humor, peasant cunning, ”

“<strong>Melbourne Theatre Company, Southbank Theatre<br></strong>While Alison Whyte is never less than compelling, director Mark Wilson encourages a buffoonery from the cast that is fatal to this play’s melancholic drift”

“A spunky Helena and an inspired Puck elicit spontaneous cheers and laughter in Emily Lim’s generous, creative and clever show”

“Two couples, both of whom have lost sons, meet in Fran Kranz’s unflinching look at restorative justice”

“Joel Schumacher’s much-loved movie gets a splashy stage transfer which might be technically impressive but the songs never come to life”

“The 1973 cult favorite is back with a stacked cast, including Juliette Lewis, Luke Evans and Rachel Dratch, but only flashes of genuine fun”

“A tremendous cast lifts what might have been a formulaic drama into a compelling examination of contested memory”

“A standout turn from Jessica Vosk, taking on the Bette Midler role, isn’t enough to turn a much-loved movie into a legitimate stage show”

“(Ph. Rolando Paolo Guerzoni) An &#8220;immoral&#8221; woman who ends up stabbed by her lover was by no means the image that the Parisian audience attending the premiere of &#8220;Carmen&#8221; at the Opéra-Comique in 1875 had in mind as a proposal from a 37-year-old Georges Bizet. It is said that no one is a prophet in their own land: in France, &#8220;Carmen’s&#8221; debut passed almost without notice, and it was in its Austrian premiere that the character of the Andalusian gypsy finally began ”

“Rabbit Hole writer David Lindsay-Abaire takes on a list of modern American conflicts in a fun, if ultimately underdeveloped, comedy drama”

“Yousef Sweid shows wit and charm as he tackles his divorce and custody battle, while the larger struggle closes in around him”

“Apple’s spoofy musical comedy series makes a natural leap to the stage but often struggles to bring much that feels new to the material”

“(Credit: Evan Zimmerman) Tchaikovsky&#8217;s &#8220;Eugene Onegin&#8221; is one of the most intimate experiences one can have at an opera house. It&#8217;s a story of regret that comes with throwing away the only people that ever loved you. It&#8217;s got some of the most heart-piercing music in the canon and an impeccable pacing throughout. It&#8217;s a work that almost plays itself. Which is why the Met Opera&#8217;s revival of Deborah Warner&#8217;s production is such a frustration. Despite a”

“Incredible physical facility is married to expressive lyricism in this triple bill by the Royal Ballet’s ever adventurous resident choreographer. You never know what’s coming next”