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An operatic designer for life

Jon Perks meets the designer with the task of making a Mozart opera feel at home in a disused factoryRead

Stretching the boundaries of opera

Birmingham Opera Company is preparing to make an international splash alongside the canal in Ladywood. Terry Grimley meets artistic director Graham Vick.Read

Birmingham opera in disused rubber factory attracts international attention

Opera companies from Venice, Lisbon, Brussels, Verona, Madrid and Austria are expected to send representatives to see a production of Mozart’s Idomeneo at a disused rubber factory in Birmingham next month.Read

Das Rheingold at Longborough Festival Opera

First seen last year, Longborough’s Rheingold is a miracle of resource, imagination, flair and sheer cussed guts.Read

Birmingham Opera Company heads for rubber factory

Birmingham Opera Company will be staging a production of a Mozart favourite – in a former rubber factory.Read

Armonica Consort Opera at King's High School for Girls, Warwick

In baroque times, theatrical evenings would begin with the meaty tragedy and finish with a frothy comedy as a late-night sorbet.Read

Cunning Little Vixen at Longborough Festival Opera

Janacek's Cunning Little Vixen is a work which seems particularly suited to Longborough, high in the Cotswolds amid dense forestation, where the woodland creatures we see in this most enchanting of operas surely scuttle about their nocturnal business just as they do onstage.Read

Desmond Kelly gala, Birmingham Royal Ballet at Birmingham Hippodrome

Desmond Kelly partnered Margot Fonteyn, worked with George Balanchine and Frederick Ashton and two years ago brought ballet into the living rooms of the masses with the remarkable Ballet Hoo! project for Birmingham Royal Ballet. Read

Hansel and Gretel, Welsh National Opera at Birmingham Hippodrome

Hansel and Gretel is one of the most wonderful operas in the repertoire, but a truly searching presentation leaves you wondering whether Engelbert Humperdinck, one of Wagner's most fervent disciples, was in fact taking the mickey out of the Bayreuth master.Read

Review: Aida at Birmingham Hippodrome

Director John Caird had already warned us not to expect any sphinxes or pyramids in his new Aida for Welsh National Opera. And he made his point even during the prelude - as the curtain rose on Radamès dragging languidly on a hookah surrounded by recumbent, colourfully-gowned slaves.Read

Review: La Traviata at Longborough Festival Opera

Anyone who calls Verdi's La Traviata "grand opera" is totally missing the point.Read

Michael Corder's Stravinsky challenge

Choreographer Michael Corder talks to Terry Grimley about the challenge of staging Stravinsky's tribute to his idol Tchaikovsky.Read

Review: Madama Butterfly at Grand Theatre, Wolverhampton

Wolverhampton's opera- goers need to seize the moment when touring companies come to town.Read

Birmingham Royal Ballet fears over new immigration system

Plans to introduce a point-based migration system similar to Australia’s could threaten the recruitment of foreign dancers by Birmingham Royal Ballet, its directors warned.Read

Don Quixote by Kirov Ballet at Birmingham Hippodrome

The first International Danfie Festival Birmingham opened with a fialming spa-like experience from Cloud Gate Danfie Theatre of Taiwan - and ended with a sizzling fiery drama from the Kirov Ballet.Read

The Kirov Ballet at Birmingham Hippodrome

The aptly-named Jewels, a glittering array of three diverse ballet styles, three composers, three costume and set changes - and one choreographer, George Balanchine, was the Kirov Ballet's opening offer to Birmingham. Read

Birmingham Opera Company wins a classical 'Oscar'

Birmingham Opera Company, which was threatened with closure at the beginning of the year when the Arts Council withdrew its annual grant, won a prestigious award last night.Read

Review: Bahok at Birmingham Repertory Theatre

Co-commissioned by Birmingham's Dance Xchange along with many other parties, and partly devised during three weeks of rehearsals in its studios, this 75-minute collaboration between Akram Khan Dance Company and the National Ballet of China could hardly be more international.Read

Uliana speaks language of perfection

The Kirov Ballet comes to Birmingham Hippodrome next week. Susan Turner met its star ballerina Uliana Lopatkina at the Mariinsky Theatre, the company's home in St Petersburg.Read

Review: Tillana Tarana at Birmingham Town Hall

An evening of classical dance which began with a piece reflecting the cyclical concept of Indian time ended up demonstrating its elasticity.Read

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Musical magic

Find out the latest news from Birmingham's buzzing jazz scene. Read