Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Vivaldi

Max Emanuel Cenčić with Armonia Atenea under George Petrou provide an exciting and satisfying concert at the Halle Handel Festival

Ceresa’s flamboyant production from the Festival della Valle d’Itria is revived in Venice with a strong cast under the baton of Diego Fasolis.

Stunningly fresh performances of ubiqitous classics from Joshua Bell and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields.

In Fabio Biondi's hands Vivaldi's big violin concertos clearly surpass Mozart in mature power and beauty and rival Bach in imagination and emotional richness.

Cecilia Bartoli and Sol Gabetta show impressive camraderie in Baroque arias.

Glazunov's The Seasons is a beautifully wrought and iridescent score, a jewel, a decorative Fabergé-like work of art, stuffed with melodic bonbons. 

One had the opportunity to see The Cleveland Orchestra function as a true chamber ensemble without conductor as a program of Vivaldi, Haydn and Mendelssohn was led by concertmaster William Preucil.

Delayed by torrential rain, the Enescu Festival's all-Handel concert took a while to get going, but was an utter delight once it did. 

Four years ago, the ACO mounted The Reef. Mountain is clearly its successor: another film project involving scenes of nature peopled by extreme-sports enthusiasts, screened while an eclectic soundtrack is played live by the orchestra.

In his early twenties, French cellist Edgar Moreau, a rising star in performing Baroque repertoire on the cello, made his Proms debut at Cadogan Hall.

This production of Antonio Vivaldi’s Orlando furioso showed the audience what a Baroque opera is.

Maurice Steger brought this essential but under-represented instrument from Renaissance and Baroque chamber and ensumble music to a mainstream concert hall. 

Leonard Elschenbroich joined with the 12 ensemble for an evening dedicated to the Suite italienne, a stroll through time though with a focus on contemporary composers.

It's typical that in the last concert in a series that has lasted seventeen years, we had a recital from a talented young singer with a growing reputation, a Rosenblatt classic.

Two fine choreographers and the Orchestra La Scintilla heralded two world premiere performances of new ballets at the Zurich opera house.

With Satu Vänskä at the helm, the ACO delivers a thrilling series of performances in an ecclectic program at the City Recital Hall, Sydney

As always in the librettos of the time, the historical events are just a weak excuse to stage timeless stories of jealousy, struggle for power, sexual desire – the ingredients in today's television series.

For her London recital debut, Sondra Radvanovsky offered a varied programme of ranging from Bellini to Barber, showing off the technique with which she has dazzled American audiences.

Joined by the exquisitely subtle Accademia Bizantina led by Alessandro Tampieri, Scholl brought little-known but no less great devotions to the Virgin Mary to life with impetus and intimacy.

Excellent choral concert for Handel Festival at Karlsruhe, featuring works by Vivaldi and Handel, which also highlight up-and-coming countertenor Jakub Józef Orliński. 

A satisfying concoction of Italian concertos from the Academy of Ancient Music had Frank de Bruine leading the charge on oboe, with pristine performances also from violin and harpsichord.

Conductor and violinist Fabio Biondi led the CSO in works of Corelli and Vivaldi, while Vivica Genaux served as an impressive soloist in a selection of Baroque arias.

A recital from one of the world's most celebrated violinists took the audience on a tour of periods in classical music. 

In the opening concert of the fifth Valletta International Baroque Festival, soloist Andrea Di Marco shows the versatility of the Baroque trumpet.

Featuring “greats” of the Italian and German Baroque, The Zurich Chamber Orchestra (ZKO) recently played a concert in the perfect venue.

Richard Tognetti brings Baroque masterworks to Melbourne along with the world premiere of Kats-Chernin's new work for strings, Singing Trees.

Guest Laura Jackson leads the Atlanta Symphony in three light pieces and a masterwork, with soloist Avi Avital.

Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons is used a reference in Anna Meredith’s Anno, an immersive performance by the Scottish Ensemble with surround visuals by illustrator Eleanor Meredith.

It's not his most commonly performed work, but with a crack team of vocal (and orchestral) soloists, Andrea Marcon and the Venice Baroque Orchestra gave a fabulous account of Vivaldi's only surviving oratorio.

Julia Lezhneva partners with Richard Tognetti and the ACO to deliver a thrilling program of Baroque arias, in which her vocal agility and expressivity are on full display.

Smuin Contemporary American Ballet presents a trio of works ranging from the sublime to the eclectic in the company’s 2016-17 opening program.

The specialist musicians that gather in this Swiss alpine setting every summer can be counted upon to give solid performances. The fourth Baroque concert in this year’s series was no exception.

Outdoor concerts are always prey to the vicissitudes of weather. The Festival of Early Music in Lativa is so well organized, unexpected light rain started just at the beginning of the interval and politely ceased before the second half of the programme. 

Local soprano Elīna Šimkus was a fascinating combination of Farinelli and Emma Kirkby.

Giovanni Antonini conducts the Tonhalle Orchestra in an appealing programme of works by Beethoven, Bach and Vivaldi that marked the Zurich debut of the dynamic Israeli mandolinist Avi Avital.

In its Balkan-Baroque! programme, Geneva Camerata – inspired by clarinettist Gilad Harel – really found their groove in a variety of dances from the Balkan regions.

Craig Ogden in Castelnuovo-Tedesco's Guitar Concerto no. 1 is the highlight of the Northern Chamber Orchestra's varied concert of (mostly) Italian music in Macclesfield.

São Paulo Companhia de Dança presents a mixed programme of works by Edouard Lock, Jomar Mesquita and Nacho Duato at the Théâtre Maisonneuve in Montréal

Joyce DiDonato enchants the public of the Amsterdam Concertgebouw with a program of art songs and arias inspired by Venice.

Widely considered one of the finest oboists of his generation, Albrecht Mayer gave a riveting performance with the Zurich Chamber Orchestra at the city’s Tonhalle.

Young ensemble demonstrates their maturity at the Valletta International Baroque Festival.

A free public concert with Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and celebrated friends chosen for the 10th anniversary celebrations of the Colombian festival.

Young Russian violinist Yury Revich gets a rapturous response from Leipzigers.

The Baroque credentials of St John's Smith Square were thoroughly endorsed in a beautifully proportioned concert by the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment directed by the doyenne of British Baroque violinists, Rachel Podger.

La Serenissima bring a fresh interpretation to a seasoned classic in Cambridge.

Jeanette Sorrell and her Cleveland Baroque band Apollo’s Fire are renowned for their inventive programming and “A Night at Bach’s Coffeehouse”, with guest soloist Alina Ibragimova, deftly offered a balanced musical diet. 

A hit in its hometown, Apollo's Fire is making believers on the festival circuit both in the US and abroad this summer.

Today, Vivaldi’s operas remain rarities. The American première of Cato in Utica at the Glimmerglass Festival (located an hour south of Utica, NY) attempted to elevate this little explored corner of Baroque repertoire.

B'Rock bring an interesting programme of Italian Baroque to their debut at the Proms.

In an operatic head-to-head, Handel would emerge triumphant for most Baroque buffs, yet Milanese soprano Roberta Invernizzi presented an excellent case for the Red Priest in a dazzling Wigmore Hall recital with La Risonanza.