What is the best performance you've seen?

A couple of nights ago I went to Verdi's Requiem performed by the Oakland Symphony, in Oakland, California's Paramont Theatre. This had been the best performance I've seen/heard, and of course it was an opera. The four opera stars had amazing voices and surpassed the recordings I've listened to. I'll have to post their names later. I absolutely loved it. Though I'm sure I will see/hear better in my time.

What is your favorite performance that you have actually been to in real life? No youtube or mp3.

Do you recommend a piece/symphony combo?

I know other performance Im planning to attened will top this but as of right it was a concert and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra with Marin Alsop conducting that included Brahms: Tragic OVerture, Barber: Piano Concerto, with Garrick Ohlsson as the soloist. and Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5 in E Minor

All the pieces were amazing and Marin Alsop is just amazing. Garrick Ohlsson was incredible with the Barber and he played an ancore, and I swear, you could hear a pin drop. The Thaikovsky was just fantastic. The best performance of the season it was great.

The Phantom of the Opera!! Wow!!

I saw it at the Kennedy Center, Washington (US tour company) this past summer, and it was phenomenal. The cast included John Cudia as The Phantom, Marni Raab as Christine, and I can't remember who played Raoul. The orchestra, however, didn't seem like something special, however, I was all the way in the back, in a box seat... :P And mind you, I had only listened to the original London cast of the show

The three main characters had amazing voices. John Cudia was excellent in the role of the Phantom. Marni Raab had some tuning and pronunciation errors (very american vowels in Opera... ouch), but she pulled it together for Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again in the middle of Act 2. Raoul was pretty good, but I assume because of the role, he didn't seem like anything special. The effects they had were spectacular- they used more trapdoors than I dare count, and plenty of effects involving a flash (Chandelier being lit, Phantom disappearing, etc.), and other things.

That's my favorite performance! I'll edit this when I remember who played Raoul. :)

and Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5 in R Minor

Perhaps Tchaikowsky is more modern than was previously thought...

Perhaps Tchaikowsky is more modern than was previously thought...

It definitely had to have been.

Sorry let me fix that....:blush:

Eminor, not R. Duh!

The best performance I've ever seen was a Carmen I saw at the Coliseu do Porto last May. May 20th, I believe. The tenor who played Don Jos

Stephen Hough playing Beethoven's 5th piano concerto at an outside concert in Chicago last summer. (Not Ravinia)

Probably the premiere performance of the Monty Python Oratorio called "Not The Messiah", which was basically The Life of Brian as an oratorio. It was, besides hysterical, an absolutely brilliant performance. "Spamalot" also impressed me in terms of production quality.

And no, I'm not being silly. I've been to operas and other musicals and such but the actual performances were almost undoubtedly bested by the ones mentioned above.

Boston Symphony this past November i think...Christian Tetzlaff performing the Berg Violin Concerto (Cond. James Levine is a Berg specialist to boot) and Mahler 9...people were literally crying during that last movement...overall the most intense performance I've ever been to

Whitare's "Paradise Lost"

Techno opera!

I absolutely loved the gigantic performance of Rameau's "Les Paladins" with William Christie and Les Arts Florissants. I often love small and fine performances of music, but this was the contrary. Opulent, colourful, witty, crazy, and truely baroque.

My favorite stuff is really local. The most impressive concert I've been to is probably the one where a bunch of people from the local orchestra played only modern chamber music like Bartok's Contrasts and Berio's Sequenza for solo flute. It was amazing.

I've attended so many different shows, and it's tough to pick a favorite.

Highlights include:

• Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra (with Carla Bley)
  
• Cuong Vu trio
  
• Kenny Wheeler's 75th birthday concert
  
• Jan Garbarek group (Weber, Bruninghaus, Mazur...very cool)
  
• Enrico Rava Quintet (with the fantastic Gianluca Petrella)
  
• Joshua Redman (Elastic Band)
  
• Dave Matthews Band (at the Gorge - beautiful, and one of the more powerful shows I've ever seen)
  
• Ornette Coleman (the Sound Grammar group)
  
• Markus Stockhausen (ECM-improv at its finest)
  

...

bruckner symphonies give me slight headaches.