Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Christopher Saunders

Throughout the entire cast, every named role was performed with the mix of enthusiasm, affection and assuredness.

Sir Kenneth MacMillan’s Habsburg history lesson comes with a cast list as long as your arm, but the plots and intrigues ensure a gripping evening at the ballet.

A richly varied trio of works celebrate The Royal Ballet's former director, performed with sincerity and panache. 

The first mixed programme of the new season is led by a stellar cast.

The Royal Ballet season opens with a MacMillan favourite, his ballet adaptation of a novel more familiar for its operatic treatment. 

The Firebird/A Month in the Country/Symphony in C is an effective and enjoyable programme to close The Royal Ballet's season.

Despite Carlos Acosta's staging of Don Quixote feeling a little tame, The Royal Ballet's star couple dazzles. 

Yet another revival of MacMillan's signature ballet.  Enlivened by tremendous performances, not least in the title role, and still a classic. But, how long will that pertain?   

Sir Peter Wright's enchanting vision of The Nutcracker continues to delight 

A career defining performance by Edward Watson, well supported by a memorable cast

Was she – or wasn’t she – the Grand Duchess Anastasia, youngest daughter of Russia's last tsar who had survived the massacre of her family in 1917? Natalia Osipova made you believe she was. 

Fluttering fans and hearts in Carlos Acosta's Don Quixote, performed by the Royal Ballet in Washington.

Carlos Acosta's Don Quixote opened this week at the Royal Opera House, with Carlos Acosta as Basilio and Marianela Núñez as Kitri.

Manon proves a wonderful start to the new season at Royal Ballet with Marianela Nuñez in the title role and Federico Bonelli as her lover.

It has been Salieri’s tragedy to have largely been overlooked by history, but The Chimney Sweep shows his mastery of musical stagecraft. It was given a spirited and musically satisfying performance by Pinchgut Opera.

Giasone was the most performed opera of the 17th century, but this was no dry, reverent exhumation. This was something much better from Pinchgut Opera: a joyous, animated resurrection.

Christmas must be nearing when that traditional fare of sparkle, excitement and the surging score of The Nutcracker bursts in full flood onto the world’s ballet stages. Originally created in 1891 by Marius Petipa for the Mariinsky Theatre, the ballet has become the annual bread-winner for most companies (albeit in various versions), guaranteeing full houses and happy customers.