In both Schönberg’s Central Europe and Ives’ New England one could hear the piano straining to liberate itself from the formal constraints of classical tradition

The Ginastera's Violin Concerto, which enjoyed a high-profile première under Leonard Bernstein in 1963, Roman Simovic and the committed support of the orchestra suggested a work that is ready for wider rediscovery

Don Giovanni himself, with his top hat and black cloak, cut an undeniably sinister figure and, for a brief moment at the beginning, one wondered if the Victorian trappings of the sets were going to be used to take the story in a Jack the Ripper direction

The new production at Santa Fe Opera, directed by Bruno Ravella, managed to capture much of the opera’s fine emotional balance, but was perhaps even more notable for the quality of its musical performances, especially the Marschallin of Rachel Willis-Sørensen and the taut musical direction of Karina Canellakis

What made the evening baffling is that the staging -directed by Franziska Kronfoth and Julia Lwowski- was clearly the product of considerable technical skill

If 'Khovanshchina' is rarely described as a masterpiece, this was the production to make one wonder why

Tobias Kratzer’s new production at the Deutsche Oper Berlin did little to dispel the unpleasantness behind Intermezzo’s ostensible comedy

With a strong supporting cast and compelling musical direction from Kirill Petrenko, the evening was memorable as much for its unbroken tension as for its explosive outbursts of high drama

With a first-rate cast and the transcendent refinement of Christian Thielemann’s musical direction, the new Bösch's production offered a fittingly grand tribute to Strauss and von Hofmannsthal’s greatest achievement

If the evening’s vocal and orchestral forces revealed occasional moments of sentimentality in the score, such moments were far outnumbered by passages of emotional candour and grandly wrought beauty