Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | English | Jorge Navarro Colorado

In the intimate splendour of the Margravial Opera House, Bayreuth Baroque revives Cavalli’s Pompeo Magno with a riot of colors, eight masked countertenors and a Tiepolo-like air of playful chaos.

Scarlatti's oratorio proves a rather disappointing outing for Fabio Biondi and Europa Galante, not helped by the venue's acoustics. 

With dazzling set designs and powerhouse sopranos, Karlsruhe’s Rinaldo upholds the opera's Baroque fantasy allure in a flawed yet fascinating production, conducted by Rinaldo Alessandrini. 

Terrific music making with a light directorial touch brings mixed results to Monteverdi's 1643 masterpiece. 

A fine cast breathes life into the story of the captured Ottoman Sultan Bajazet and his Mongol conqueror.

English Touring Opera's triple bill of early Baroque miniatures promised an intruiging evening but failed up to expectations. 

Another masterful, sprightly and unstuffily fun production of Handel at Iford: Christopher Cowell's Partenope is erotically charged, well cast and comically compelling. 

An opera only ever performed once, over 300 years ago. Would this be a marvellous revival, or a reminder of why it has been neglected all this time?

Handel's Opera Lotario is the centrepiece for this year's Göttingen Handel festival, receiving warm acclaim on its opening night.

Alzira, Verdi’s eighth opera, is something of a discarded child within his canon, not least because of Verdi’s own dismissal of it as “proprio brutta” (really ugly) after it was poorly received both in Naples and Rome. Perhaps Verdi was stung by a blot on an otherwise successful career: on the basis of last night’s concert performance by Chelsea Opera Group, the score has plenty to commend it.

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.