Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Alistair Sutherland

Opera Holland Park give us a broad span of human joys and tragedies in an excellently staged and acted rendering of Puccini's Il trittico.

Opera Loki's stylish Victorian Rigoletto, one piano accompaniment and much grease-paint later, is an enjoyable and moving evening, though it doesn't quite get to the heart of Verdi's dark masterpiece. 

Unlike its première, disaster is averted in Opera Holland Park's Il barbiere di Siviglia, where a solidly traditional production is lit up by some splendid vocal performances. 

Donizetti’s melodramma giocoso in two acts, L’elisir d’amore, is a light-hearted tale of love overcoming all obstacles, with the help of a little “love potion”.