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Klaus Mäkelä returns to Cleveland with a recent piece by Jimmy López Bellido, prefacing a pair of English works that feature Sol Gabetta, Thomas Hampson and The Cleveland Orchestra Chorus. 

Wang's playing of Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini is a highlight of Prom 27; Mäkelä misses the bull’s eye on Belshazzar's Feast.

The festival presents an illuminist take on the myth of Orpheus in a convincing concert performance of a rarely performed opera by Haydn. 

The Zurich opera house launches a novel production of Stefan Wirth's new opera in three movements based on the popular 1999 novel by Tracy Chevalier. 

Sven-Eric Bechtolf's staging holds a balance between philosophy and humour, but Adam Fischer's vivacious conducting is the real star of the evening.

Thomas Hampson and Wolfram Rieger perform a selection of Lieder by Schubert and others during Schubert Week in Berlin.

In a program originally scheduled for the Musikverein in Vienna, Martin Haselböck and his Orchester Wiener Akademie played Beethoven and Schubert both familiar and curiously obscure. 

In the tiring role of Menelaus Andreas Schager was a mighty Heldentenor, combining impressive sound power with a dazzling colour and without ever showing a moment of fatigue.

Excellent chamber orchestras are a true pleasure to behold. The Wiener Virtuosen were in their element in an evening of Mozart, Mahler and Dvořák. 

From opera to Broadway to song, an entertaining recital in Boston... minus any tenors! 

A whole week dedicated to Schubert Lieder at the Pierre Boulez Saal, Berlin, kicks off with a recital with ambitious repertoire.

Robert Carsen's Don Giovanni cannot burn in a hell in which he does not believe. 

When an enormous black gondola creaks and shudders its way across the stage in the “Giulietta' act of the Royal Opera's Tales of Hoffmann, it acts as a metaphor for John Schlesinger's venerable production.

In a time when death and mourning lack any public or communal aspect, where the funeral procession has ceased to exist save for royalty and the occasional head of state, what relevance does the traditional dirge have?

Alan Gilbert conducts Sibelius and Mahler at the helm of the New York Philharmonic. 

Attention to delivery, effective interpretation and intelligent programming is what make the duo such a consistently beloved force in concert.

Love, light, levity, life. A joyful performance of Franz Lehár's Parisian operetta offers catharsis in troubling times. 

Both Mahler and Schoenberg found musical inspiration through poetry, and the fruit of their efforts yielded two of the most fascinating pieces of music in the canon.

Mariss Jansons' festive, but poignant, farewell concert with the Royal Concergebouw Orchestra. Thomas Hampson contrasted folksongs by Mahler with Berio and Copland. Afterwards, while Jansons conducted Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra.

The Metropolitan Opera’s five-year old production of Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann returned to the repertoire with a remarkable undertaking of the title role by Vittorio Grigolo.

Matthias Goerne steps in for Thomas Hampson and electrifies James Levine's Wozzeck at the Metropolitan Opera. 

A magnificent evening of lieder from Thomas Hampson with the Amsterdam Sinfonietta in crisp accompaniment.

A stunning collaboration between Hampson and Amsterdam Sinfonietta at Dublin’s National Concert Hall, with works by Schoenberg, Wolf, Schubert and Barber.

What is perhaps even more remarkable than the unabashed grandeur of the new Parsifal at the Lyric Opera of Chicago is the degree to which its spectacle draws on the images and genres of 20th-century media technologies including popular music.

In program notes, Christoph Eschenbach, music director of the National Symphony Orchestra, calls Parsifal “the culmination of Wagner’s work”. For his orchestra’s recent celebration of Wagner’s bicentennial at the Kennedy Center, Eschenbach programmed a concert performance of Act III of the composer’s final opera: the culmination of the culmination, one could say.

Celebrating the 100th anniversary of Benjamin Britten’s birth, Antonio Pappano led the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia Orchestra and Choir, together with first-class soloists, in an intense performance of the War Requiem.

Last night’s Covent Garden revival of Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra was a study in time slips. On stage, there is the 25 year slip between the end of the prologue, when Simon is named Doge of Genoa, and the dramatic events of Act I. There is the 24 year gap between the disastrous première of the original opera and the triumph of the heavily revised 1881 version.

With the business situation in the recording industry being what it is, studio recordings of operas are more or less ruled out. The positive side of this is that the general public gets the chance to be part of concerts that are recorded and enjoy the tension such an event creates more often.

A pub quiz question for you, dear reader: with which work did 20th century music begin? The rest is noise, Alex Ross's history of 20th century music, opens with Richard Strauss's 1905 opera Salome, focusing particularly on its final bars. As Princess Salome is crushed under the shields of King Herod's guard, the music turns to what Ross describes as "...a tumult... a howl... a shriek...

The baritone Thomas Hampson is a popular figure at the Salzburg Festival, having appeared there regularly since 1988, and at his Lieder recital with pianist Wolfram Rieger at the Haus der Mozart, one sensed a warm rapport between him and the audience. His programme consisted of Schumann’s Liederkreis, Op. 39, Dvořák’s Zigeunermelodien and Mahler’s songs based on the text of Des Knaben Wunderhorn.

Twice in a week we have enjoyed ideal concert experiences in which all the elements came together; Mozart at Wigmore Hall and this at Cadogan Hall.

Read our review of John Cox's production of ­Massenet's Thaïs in its 2008 broadcast from the Met Opera in New York.