Polish pianist Rafał Blechacz, laureate of all the five first prizes in Chopin piano competition in 2005 at the age of 20, gave a compelling recital in Taipei with a programme of Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann and Chopin. Blechacz’s Mozart Rondo

Sir András Schiff returned to Hong Kong after 11 years, this time with his “family”, Cappella Andrea Barca, and performed Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 2 and Mozart’s Symphony No.39 for the first half of the programme, and Beethoven’s Piano Concerto

French director Benoît Jacquot’s production (Revival Director Andrew Sinclair) dates back to 2004, and has had at least two revivals at the Royal Opera House. It remains as insipid and drab as at its first showing and it is hard

Luigi Cherubini’s Medea is nothing if not firmly and consistently associated with Maria Callas. The Greek American soprano revived this masterpiece from relative obscurity, and committed it to stage, disc, film, but most importantly to legend. Any Medea needs to

Salzburg generally does Mozart exceptionally well. But this year Salzburg did very little well, including Mozart. The Salzburg native’s seminal work is difficult to perform at the best of times. The story set in Crete after the Trojan War poses

The Grange Festival has dramatically risen from operatic ashes after the previous management team marched off in 2016 with the chairs, lighting, database and many of the all-important sponsors. The backers of the glorious but dilapidated venue in Hampshire quickly

Grigory Sokolov, regarded as one of the best pianists alive, delivered an exceptionally refined and sublime recital at Historische Stadthalle Wuppertal as part of the Klavier-Festival Ruhr 2019, with a programme consisting of Beethoven and Brahms. On a side note,

Giuseppe Verdi’s La Forza del Destino at the Royal Opera House was all about star appeal. With the irresistible double bill of Anna Netrebko and Jonas Kaufmann, the early performances were all hopelessly sold out, with tickets reportedly trading on