Supersized performing forces and a high energy level sometimes threw the balance off in the Dallas Symphony Orchestra’s performance of Beethoven’s Fidelio, but the excitement was there.

Jaap van Zweden produced some surprises Thursday night as the Dallas Symphony Orchestra went from music on a massive scale (Bruckner) to more modest masterpieces by Haydn, Tchaikovsky and Mozart.

Thursday night’s concert by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra was the finest of the season. Jaap van Zweden and an enlarged orchestra delivered massive thrills with Bruckner’s Symphony No. 8

Bach’s great St. Matthew Passion was given an imposing performance Thursday night by Jaap van Zweden, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and an army of choral and solo vocalists.

The Dallas Opera has taken a striking new course with the presentation of Peter Maxwell Davies’ spooky “The Lighthouse” in a venue normally associated with spoken drama rather than drama with music.

On Thursday night and again tonight, the Dallas Opera’s music director, Graeme Jenkins, is sandwiching a very different kind of work between performances of his company’s “Tristan und Isolde.” It’s Handel’s oratorio “Theodora,” which could hardly be different from Wagner’s masterpiece.

The Houston Grand Opera gets it half-right with its latest pair of productions. The right part is its presentation of Benjamin Britten’s “The Rape of Lucretia.” The other part is Verdi’s “La Traviata,” which never quite achieves the potential of one of opera’s greatest hits.

This weekend the Dallas Symphony Orchestra has a somewhat unusual program with what is becoming the usual result: fine music-making under the direction of Jaap van Zweden. The composers represented include Mozart, Wagner (the unusual one) and Debussy.

Music from Valencia, the homeland of architect Santiago Calatrava, celebrated his Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge across the Trinity River Sunday night. Performing was the Lone Star Wind Orchestra.

With 11 months still to go, Thursday night’s concert by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra is easily in the running for one of the year’s best.
The program included two masterpieces — Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto and Schubert’s Symphony No. 9 — and two musical stars — principal clarinetist Gregory Raden and conductor Jaap van Zweden.