Live, On demand, Streamed event: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Dominic Sedgwick

Benjamin Britten's final opera hasn't been staged by The Royal Opera in over 25 years, but his setting of Thomas Mann's Death in Venice receives a great new production by Sir David McVicar. 

The young singers spin any raw material into opera gold, sending the audience home as uplifted as if they’d just glugged a bellyful of Pimm’s.

Barrie Kosky's divisive production returns to The Royal Opera but has lost its zing. 

After nearly two decades away from the Covent Garden stage, it was time Britten's Billy Budd came home, in a new production from Madrid by Deborah Warner. 

Amanda Majeski is magnificent in the title role; Ed Gardner shows total master of Janáček's music. But that's not enough to rescue a poorly thought out Richard Jones production.

Barrie Kosky's troubled production returns to Covent Garden

Mark-Anthony Turnage's take on Neil Gaiman's classic young adult novella is well sung and well staged, without quite reaching peak intensity.

Interesting ideas and a brilliant orchestral performance aren't enough to overcome a visually dull staging, predictable choreography and a lack of chemistry between the protagonists.

Henrik Nánási balances the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House to perfection, setting the stage for a memorable title role performance from Byström and a powerful Jochanaan from Michael Volle.

The father-daughter exchanges between Dmitri Platanias's jester and Sofia Fomina's Gilda prove the highlights of an evening which doesn't always catch fire.

Glyndebourne's second Traviata cast of the summer saw the festival field three principals worthy of any major international opera house. 

In the first of its opera productions this season, the Guildhall School of Music and Drama presented an interesting combination of Stravinsky's odd little comedy, Mavra and Tchaikovsky's tale of the blind princess, Iolanta.

Bleak and uncompromising in vision and intention, Britten's The Rape of Lucretia gets a suitably dark, discomfiting outing at Guildhall. 

In the programme notes to the Guildhall production of Journeying Boys, writer and director Iain Burnside reveals that the original idea behind the play came from Nick Sears, the Royal College of Music’s Head of Vocal Studies. It’s hard to know whether that disclosure was a giving of credit due or a disclaimer.