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The Latest Breaking News from the Royal Opera

Shock and awe: our critics pick their best live classical events of 2025

Turnage’s Festen at the Royal Opera House swept all before it, but there was plenty of extraordinary new music, exhilarating performances and triumphs of talent, commitment and resourcefulness across the UK this year. We pick our best moments

The Guardian - UK

Ariodante at Royal Opera: A glorious and moving first staging in 300 years

4/5 The first staging of Handel’s Ariodante in 300 years is a moving tragedy delivered with exemplary performances

Evening Standard

Last Days at Royal Opera: 'One of the most original operas this century'

5/5 Loosely based on Gus Van Sant’s film, which itself is loosely based on the final days of Kurt Cobain, this opera has its own special atmosphere

Evening Standard

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‘I’m good at doing pain’: soprano Ausrine Stundyte on trauma, adrenaline and playing a 300-year-old woman

As she prepares to star in Janáček’s The Makropulos Case for the Royal Opera, the great singer explains that she does not play ‘the happy, jumping, sexy lady’

The Guardian - UK

As Putin’s bombs fall on Ukraine, the Royal Opera House had a call to make about Anna Netrebko. It made the wrong one

The Russian soprano says she has condemned the war and has no affinity with this Kremlin. But hosting her still seems unwise, says Guardian columnist Martin Kettle

The Guardian - UK

The Royal Ballet and Opera must reconsider its invitation to Anna Netrebko

Letters: The Russian singer is symbol of cultural propaganda for a regime that is responsible for serious war crimes in Ukraine, say co-signatories including Sergiy Kyslytsya, Andriy Kurkov, Helen Clark and Alex Sobel MP

The Guardian - UK

Wagner's Die Walküre at Royal Opera: revelatory and apocalyptic

5/5 This stark and stunning production by Barrie Kosky is apocalyptic and breathtaking

Evening Standard

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‘Touching the soul is all that matters!’ The outrageous genius of Barrie Kosky and his Wagner phantasmagoria

He put Carmen in a gorilla suit and had Das Rheingold’s Erda represented by an 82-year-old naked woman. What are the the director’s plans for his edge-of-the-seat Die Walküre?

The Guardian - UK

The week in classical: Khovanshchina; Carmen review – the parallels with modern Russia are unmissable

Mussorgsky’s apocalyptic unfinished opera is given a fierce new lease of life by the McBurney brothers, Esa-Pekka Salonen and an exceptional young mezzo

The Guardian - UK

John Lithgow and Lesley Manville take home acting gongs at starry Olivier Awards

Imelda Staunton and Romola Garai were among the winners of the night

The Independent UK

Olivier awards 2025: full list of winners

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Giant and Fiddler on the Roof were among the big winners at the Royal Albert Hall ceremony

The Guardian - UK

Olivier Awards: Adrien Brody, Ben Whishaw, Mark Strong and Imelda Staunton among nominees

Annual British theatre awards will take place in April

The Independent UK

London Symphony Orchestra conductor Antonio Pappano goes underground — he takes the Tube to work

Conductor Antonio Pappano is leading the orchestra on a 13-concert U.S. tour to California, Florida and New York that ends this week with its first Carnegie Hall concerts since 2005

The Independent UK

Olivier awards 2025: complete list of nominations

From Adrien Brody up for best actor for The Fear of 13 to Hello, Dolly! up for best musical revival, see who else is in the running at this year’s awards

The Guardian - UK

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Evening Standard

Festen at The Royal Opera review: gripping adaptation of a taboo-breaking film masterpiece

4/5 This adaptation of Thomas Vinterberg’s film is a skillful and gripping rendering of a taboo-busting story

The Guardian - UK

The week in classical: Aida; Chineke!; Paddington Trio – review

The Royal Opera Chorus steals the show in a revival of Robert Carsen’s solemn take on Verdi; Chineke! celebrate 10 years of change-making. Plus, a great young string trio who live every note

The Guardian - UK

The week in classical: LSO/ Rattle; CBSO/ Volkov; Jenůfa – review

Simon Rattle celebrates his big birthday with two striking world premieres; the sea meets surrealism in Satie’s centenary year. Plus, intense Janáček and a rousing Covent Garden welcome

Evening Standard

Jenufa at the Royal Opera House review: symbolic, psychologically probing and more potent than ever

4/5 This revival was Jakub Hrusa’s first production as Covent Garden’s music director designate – the venue is in safe hands

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The Guardian - UK

The week in classical: La bohème; London Contemporary Music festival – review

Ukrainian soprano Olga Kulchynska is an unforgettable Mimì in Richard Jones’s ever sumptuous Puccini production. And mischief rules at this year’s LCMF

The Guardian - UK

The week in classical: Opera triple bill: Britten, Weill and Ravel; Hänsel und Gretel; Tosca – review

Two opera studio shows find the next generation of stars in rude health, while the Royal Opera’s latest Tosca revival is the ultimate class act

The Guardian - UK

‘Opera should be an unstoppable art form’: Royal Opera announce Netia Jones as associate director

The Royal Ballet and Opera have created a new role, allowing Jones to drive development and new commissions

The Guardian - UK

The week in classical: The Tales of Hoffmann; Philharmonia/ Salonen; Berlin Philharmonic/ Petrenko – review

Wild fantasies take hold in Offenbach’s compellingly strange opera; Lawrence Power is more than a match for Magnus Lindberg’s new Viola Concerto; and to the underworld with the Berlin Phil

Evening Standard

Eugene Onegin at the Royal Opera review: this tale of heartbreaking regret gets the spine tingling

This tale of missed opportunity is given fresh life by Ted Huffman

The Guardian - UK

Prom 49: Czech Philharmonic/Hrůša/Kobekina review – impassioned playing of Dvořák and less well known Suk

Conductor Jakub Hrůša, who takes over next year at the Royal Opera, balanced Dvořák’s Cello Concerto with his son-in-law Suk’s uncompromising grief-filled work

The Independent UK

Olivier Awards: Andrew Scott, Nicole Scherzinger and Sarah Jessica Parker among nominees

Annual British theatre awards will take place in April

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