The Eighth offers perhaps the most fully-realised expression of Bruckner's vision, and when one is fortunate enough to experience a performance as great as the one given by Andris Nelsons and the Berlin Philharmonic, it is impossible to emerge from the concert hall unmoved

Das Gehege, described as a ‘night scene’ for soprano and orchestra, was written initially for the stage, and while its most obvious precursor is Schönberg’s Erwartung, its intoxicating mixture of sensuality and violence has arguably more in common with the final scene of Strauss’ Salome

With reliably taut musical direction from Mazzola and a cast that gained in distinction as the evening progressed, the evening was a rewarding addition to the Deutsche Oper’s recent run of intelligent and provocative new Verdi productions

In the past several years, the Deutsche Oper Berlin and director Christof Loy have been mining the neglected margins of the early-twentieth-century operatic repertoire … and more often than not they’ve managed to strike gold.

If the passing of Rihm gave the first part of the evening a sombre cast, the performance of IN-SCHRIFT led by Kirill Petrenko served as a fitting tribute to an extraordinary career

The best concerts can arise from the simple combination of familiar works, a superlative orchestra, and a conductor with a strong vision for how the music should sound

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