Beethoven completed just one opera, but even that proved a tortuous effort. So was writing for the stage where the great composer met his match?

A stylish, brooding take on Puccini's Tosca by West Australian Opera.

Bored with the idea of seeing yet another Butterfly performance? Think again. You will be in for a treat.

Sydney portrait photographer Gary Grealy has taken top honours at this year's Portrait Prize.

Marlis Petersen has been the preeminent Lulu for two decades. Since she announced that she would be retiring from the role after this Met production, this Bluray is an important document. Visual artist William Kentridge wowed the Met a few years ago with a hyperactive production of Shostakovich’s The Nose, but I was wary of his take on Berg’s towering masterpiece – with a work of such dramatic intensity I’d happily swap all the Met’s technical gee-gaws for a few chairs and a spotlight. I suspect his arresting visual trickery might have been distracting in the theatre, but thankfully the filming strikes an ideal mean with cameras focusing our attention on the intense drama. That said: it is certainly a visual feast with constantly evolving projections referencing Expressionist and Weimar Republic visual cues with India ink, linocut and woodcut overlaying newsprint. The occasional Rorschach blot is a clever visual metaphor for both the moral ambiguity of Lulu (“I’ve never pretended to be anything but what men see in me”) and the opera’s formal arch structure. The cast is excellent. Johan Reuter manages to draw sympathy as a younger than usual Dr Schön, his anger more menacing for that. Susan Graham…

Yende makes a compelling case for a place in your collection with this finely-engineered and recorded disc.

Giordano’s 1896 French Revolution opera is not as popular as it was. A star vehicle for a great tenor, it’s lumped in the verismo basket, though it bears more resemblance to the historical romances of Verdi. The score balances period pastiche with more urgent fin de siècle passions, and in the right hands it can soar. That’s certainly the case under the baton of Antonio Pappano in this, Covent Garden’s first new staging in 30 years. David McVicar’s meticulously researched, dramatically detailed production gives this sprawling beast its best chance to bite – you can smell the foul breath of the mob. Robert Jones’ grand sets and Jenny Tiramani’s authentic costumes provide a backdrop against which McVicar can deploy his quick intelligence, ensuring credibility and motivational insight. On the other hand, there’s little can be done about the awkward dramaturgy. Crucial changes of fortune happen off stage, and the five year gap between acts one and two is a problem for an audience unversed in the political ups and downs from the Estates-General to the Jacobin Terror. Nevertheless, you couldn’t ask for a finer Chénier than Jonas Kaufmann. Firm-toned and ardent, he’s well matched by Eva-Maria Westbroek as an intense,…

Artistic director of Russia’s Perm State Opera, Greek-born conductor Teodor Currentzis and his relentlessly drilled HIP orchestra Musica Aeterna have been attracting encomia and outrage in equal measure for their thrilling, uncompromising and often eccentric accounts of works by composers from Purcell to Stravinsky and Shostakovich. This recording of Mozart’s Don Giovanni – apparently released a year later than planned because Currentzis was unhappy and insisted on doing it all over again – completes the firebrand’s survey of the composer’s three operas to libretti by Lorenzo Da Ponte. Like his Nozze di Figaro and Così Fan Tutte, Currentzis’ take on the Don grips you from the terrifying overture and sweeps you along to the terrible denouement. Again, the precision of the orchestral playing, often at breakneck speed, defies belief. Currentzis sees Don Giovanni as inhabiting a very specific soundworld combining “the coldness of the Salzburg church music tradition” with “a Mediterranean Baroque sound.” Thus Don Giovanni (Dimitris Tiliakos) strikes one as more pitiable than ever; Leporello (Vito Priante) despite his servitude, more admirable, while Karina Gauvin’s Donna Elvira is the very embodiment of a woman scorned. Mika Kares (Il Commendatore), Myrtò Papatanasiu (Donna Anna), Kenneth Tarver (Don Ottavio), Christina Gansch…

Argentinian countertenor Franco Fagioli has always been a live wire.

Following the opening of Carmen on Sydney Harbour, the team has taken issue with changes made without their permission.

Matilda, OA's Ring Cycle and MTC's Miss Julie were among the winners at Melbourne's performing arts awards.

Currently singing with the OA chorus in Carmen, young soprano Laura Scandizzo is about to perform Race for the Sky.