Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Angela Simkin

Guth's intelligent production comes with a Karita Mattila masterclass and an outstanding cast, intense to the point of pain. 

Britten's four lovers were costumed in quasi-contemporary, even glamorous manner, stripping to their underwear for the end of Act 2... so more Love Island than Ancient Athens.

Virginie Verrez acted not with fire and ice but with gallic insouciance.

Comic opera can fall flat, but if The Grange Festival's new production of Verdi's final masterpiece is a total delight, with a strong concept and a strong cast. This is country-house opera at its best.

The chance to watch their finely gauged interpretation unfold on the Royal Festival Hall platform was a privilege.

A standout performance from Stephen Milling complements all-round excellence of cast to provide a satisfying end to the Covent Garden Ring.

Antonio Pappano and the Royal Opera Orchestra get the Ring cycle off to a blazing start; unusually, it's Lise Davidsen and the female cast who take the vocal honours.

In Thomas Guthrie’s revival of Sir David McVicar’s sober 2003 production of Mozart’s Singspiel, it was the pantomime elements of the show which registered strongly.

Two years ago, Russian soprano Ekaterina Bakanova was thrust into her Royal Opera debut, stepping in at short notice as Violetta. Her triumph was enough for the powers that be to offer her a run of five performances this month.

Has Health and Safety finally caught up with the Spanish Inquisition? A flameless auto-da-fé and some low-key individual performances meant this revival took time to hit its stride. 

Gerald Finley's velvet baritone lights up this revival of David McVicar's production of Cilea's murder story

Richard Eyre's uncomplicated production remains as watchable as ever; Joyce El-Khoury makes a promising Covent Garden debut.

A concert performance wasn't perhaps the best way to make a case for Jommelli's Il Vologeso, presented as part of Classical Opera's Mozart 250 series. 

This traditional production of Patience was strongly sung and acted and was a joyful evening.

The laughs keep on coming in Liam Steel's glorious 1950s Albert Herring in an English village where pretensions rise as morals decay, while Nick Pritchard shines as our modest eponymous hero.

A reconstruction of a long-lost opera by Handel gives some exciting young singers the chance to shine at the London Handel Festival, even if the plot might be better back in the mists of obscurity. 

It may not be perfect, but this rare chance to see Rossini's La gazzetta should not be missed, in a glitteringly elaborate production with a talented young cast, great choreography and even a pantomime camel...

Despite a disappointingly static production, the cast shine in the Royal College of Music's producion of Handel's rarity Arianna in Creta.

Gilbert and Sullivan’s Iolanthe made history twice over on its opening night of 25 November 1882: in the first instance it was the first G&S production to play at the recently completed Savoy Theatre; and in the second, it was the first to open (almost) simultaneously at the Standard Theatre, New York City, beginning barely an hour after the conclusion of the London performance on the same d