Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Thomas Guthrie

Purcell's counterpoint is beautifully sung by a young cast to inaugurate England's latest country house opera venue.

Rising like a phoenix, the Alexandra Palace Theatre stages its first opera since its reopening after eighty years of slumber. 

A semi-staged Dido from the Academy of Ancient Music and the speculative funeral music for a queen.

With a glinting voice of a youthful sheen, like bracing Nordic air, Kirstin Sharpin was entirely convincing as the obsessed dreamer, Senta.

A fresh, yet traditional Magic Flute at Longborough uses puppetry to bring an atmosphere of fairytale onto the stage, with fine singing from a strong cast. 

Mozart's first stage work was written when he was just eleven years old; in this performance by Classical Opera, the composer's youthful writing and touches of humour are brought to life by a solid cast and lively conducting.

An even cast and a simple production makes Longborough Festival Opera's latest foray into aristocratic misdeeds a success.

J.C. Bach's opera Adriano in Siria, set to a popular libretto by Metastasio, was first performed in London in January 1765 when the nine-year-old Mozart was in town.

The Barber of Seville and Eugene Onegin, the two operas being toured by English Touring Opera this season, share two things: they are both highly melodic stalwarts of the repertoire, and their plots both revolve around the writing of love letters.

Purcell’s The Fairy Queen is a tricky thing to stage. It’s not an opera, with its own story-line, but a masque, a series of musical interludes intended to slot into a performance of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. One solution could be just to perform it in concert, but the music is so dramatic that it lends itself wonderfully to stage action.

Dimanche 5 juillet au Barbican, le London Symphony Orchestra rejoint par des élèves de la Guildhall School et de nombreux choristes amateurs présentait "The Monster in the Maze" de Jonathan Dove, un opéra très enthousiasmant dirigé par Sir Simon Rattle, suivi par une symphonie de Walton elle aussi exaltante.