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Barenboim conducts Otto Nicolai's Falstaff opera with a warmth and affection that is sorely lacking on stage. 

Franz Welser-Möst selected a Schubert symphony and the first act of Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet to open the Cleveland Orchestra season.

The remarkable youth orchestra that is the Waseda Symphony from Tokyo performs a programme of western Romantic music conducted by Kazufumi Yamashita together with a knockout contemporary Japanese work.

Alek Shrader's Wigmore Hall debut was thrilling, touching, charming and mysterious.

A superb partnership between Osmo Vänskä and the LPO created a thrilling account of Elgar’s First Symphony but put Korngold’s Violin Concerto in the shade.

School’s out for summer and with it the opportunity for the Royal Opera’s Jette Parker Young Artists to showcase their talents in the end of term main stage performance. 

Otto Nicolai’s very German take on Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor was a big hit in the mid-19th century but has been infrequently performed since then, largely because Verdi’s version, Falstaff, completely eclipsed it.

To add insight and context to their performances of Das Rheingold, Opera North have been staging a number of events exploring Wagner, his music and the production of his operas. On Saturday evening their Howard Assembly Room played host to The Cross in the Mountains, an evening of German choral music composed in the age of the Ring Cycle.