Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Ashley Riches

Rafael Payare leads a fevered account of desire, damnation and sonic grandeur, ably supported by Karen Cargill and Andrew Staples. 

Kazuki Yamada and the CBSO and Chorus weave Baroque and Romantic allusions into Haydn’s Classical masterpiece, in a superb, at times operatic, performance at Symphony Hall.

A star-studded group of soloists and a wonderful choir make for an interesting, if not always convincing, interpretation of Bach's joyous oratorio. 

A concert performance of Puccini's take on operetta sees a superlative reading of the score from Sir Antonio Pappano, and a sensational Magda from Carolina López Moreno.

Massed choral forces, a strong solo line up and expanded orchestral forces overpower Handel at the end of the BBC Proms Choral Day.

The Royal Opera orchestra, chorus and a large cast bring their A game to Sir Antonio Pappano's last run as music director.

Two short choral works and a Bach double violin concerto introduce Schubert’s neglected masterpiece, his Mass in A flat major. 

Tchaikovsky's final opera and ballet were always intended to be paired; at the Royal Albert Hall Petrenko and the RPO present them together in a rewarding double-bill, marred by microphones.

Dinis Sousa doesn't put a foot wrong as the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique and Monteverdi Choir give a performance of startling virtuosity at the end of a European tour. 

Few musicians in the world can ever have had such a strong connection to a composer as The Hallé and Elder have developed with Elgar over the last quarter of a century. 

Outstanding performances of A Child of Our Time and the Concerto for Double String Orchestra at the Barbican.

Whether surrounded by lanterns and weapons, or musicians and fellow congregation members, one is deeply involved in this work.

Sir Mark Elder conducts The Hallé in a stirring semi-staged production of Madama Butterfly.

Under the direction of Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Zurich’s fine Tonhalle Orchestra, The Monteverdi Choir and soloists launch a sonorous holiday season with Hector Berlioz’s sacred oratorio L’Enfance du Christ.

A delightful performance of Haydn's oratorio, streamed from the Barbican all the way to our reviewer in Australia. 

An incandescent concert performance of Tippett’s The Midsummer Marriage launches a new era for the London Philharmonic under principal conductor Edward Gardner.

Jennifer France stars in Stephen Barlow's staging of The Cunning Little Vixen, set in the perfect surroundings of Holland Park. 

Editor Ben Willis almost convinced me that two grown men could fit inside grandfather clocks

Richard Egarr was able to put together a performance that – full of energy and dynamism – succeeded in bringing forward with great transparency, restraint and delicacy this score’s wonderful musical tapestry. 

Directed by Gerard McBurney, this concert recreated the marathon Akademie conducted by Beethoven in Vienna which saw the premieres of four major works. 

Bieito’s Carmen is now a mainstay of ENO's repertoire, but with an excellent central cast led by Sean Panikkar and Justina Gringytė, the production feels entirely fresh. 

To mark the 150th anniversary of the composer's death, Sir John Eliot Gardiner conducts the opera charting the escapades of the Italian goldsmith and sculptor. 

Wolf-Ferrari's Il segreto di Susanna provides an airy bon-bouche to Tchaikovsky's Iolanta, brilliantly sung by Natalya Romaniw and David Butt Philip and conducted to fairy-tale perfection by Sian Edwards

Christopher Purves bosses the show as Méphistophélès; Richard Jones' production is intelligent and carefully thought through but ultimately unconvincing.

Mark-Anthony Turnage's First World War opera both moves and dazzles at the Barbican.

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

Even if Hubert Parry was overshadowed by Holst and Vaughan Williams, this was a splendid concert of British music. 

A resounding success at its 1709 première, Handel’s Agrippina gripped the ear and dazzled the eye at the Grange Festival in a hugely entertaining and powerful performance.

Despite the longueurs of the piece, this performance of Solomon was pretty much perfect. 

Fiona Shaw's production doesn't always get everything right, but Lucy Crowe's debut as the Countess is the defining success of the this revival.

Cast and choir snaked and kicked their legs through the aisles of the hall – picking up audience members along the way – leading to a riotous on-stage dance.

An unapologetic treat at the Proms and a composition of immediate appeal.

In a concert of two halves, Worcester Cathedral experiences unforgettable pain and pleasure in works by Strauss, Rasch and Janáček.

Mozart's Don Giovanni is transported by director Oliver Platt to The Queen Mary in the 1930s. It looks handsome enough, but the concept is flawed.

There’s nothing new or inventive about Leigh’s revived production, which in itself is not a crime, but neither is there an abundance of energy; it's all a bit nice. 

Eschewing conventions throughout, Daisy Evans' production of The Fairy Queen walks boldly out of the woods into an exciting future for opera staging.

The Academy of Ancient Music gave a finely honed account of Handel's unusual "little opera", written for the Earl of Carnavon's household musicians: a sweet pastoral offering never yet out of the repertoire. 

John Eliot Gardiner assembled the Monteverdi Choir and the English Baroque Soloists for a moving performance of JS Bach's great oratorio.

Despite some fine singing, Benedict Andrew's production of La bohème for English National Opera is devoid of heart. 

A successful concert hall Rake's Progress at the Edinburgh International Festival with an impressively strong cast of singers, Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Royal Conservatoire Voices under Sir Andrew Davis.

Weddings bring out the cynic in me. They also bring out the cynic in Don Alfonso and it’s at a wedding breakfast that John Fulljames sets his production of Così fan tutte. 

At carnival time, Cavalli’s mission was to make his audience laugh, wow them with a bit of vocal gymnastics, butter up their romantic feelings with a few delicate cadences, and maybe leave a tear or two in their eye. It’s a potent formula, and it still works.

An operatic thiller? Can such a thing exist? With an edgy score, Søren Nils Eichberg’s opera Glare tries hard to convince, at least initially.

If you want to have your operatic head seriously messed with, imagine the following: Così fan tutte staged on the Act I/IV set of John Copley’s soon-to-be-mothballed La bohème, which closed with a double performance on Saturday afternoon and evening. Throw in Don Alfonso sporting frock coat, wig and cane, looking for all the world like Baron Scarpia, and the mash-up of references had my head spinning.

As revivals go, Karita Mattila and Jane Archibald make the Royal Opera's Ariadne auf Naxos a must-see.

There is something pleasurably straining, for the big-hall, velvet-accustomed operagoer, about the experience of sitting for three hours on a very tiny bench in a charmingly chiselled, candlelit little theatre that invites contemplation in its own right – beyond the attractions, musical and other, set up within its frame.

For sheer dramatic potential, let alone the beauty of its music, Daniel Purcell’s The Judgement of Paris is a rare find. In this celebratory performance at St John’s Smith Square, this long-lost opera sparkles at us across the silent centuries.