Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | James Hall

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.

Anna Devin's Cleopatra moved with complete conviction for scheming minx to mature woman in love.

Harry Bicket leads Royal Northern Sinfonia and Chorus and a fine line-up of soloists in a performance that moves effortlessly between the human and eternal time lines of Bach's St John Passion.

Even without stage machinery or sets, The English Concert’s performance of Handel’s Rinaldo was enchanting. 

A restless score, a stylish modern setting and gripping central performances from David Butt Philip (trading Laertes at the festival for the title role here) and Jennifer France (Ophelia) do much to commend this new work

There’s something decidedly odd about pitching up at Glyndebourne sans picnic hamper, wrapped up in heavy layers, the aroma of mulled wine wafting through the foyer... 

A joyously fresh and zesty Orfeo, played on a selection of period instruments and with a magnificent leading tenor, makes for a superb evening of Monteverdi with Sir John Eliot Gardiner. 

The Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists performed Monteverdi's L'Orfeo in Costa Mesa.

La Calisto is a delicious mash-up of two classical legends: Jupiter’s seduction of Diana’s acolyte Calisto and Diana’s own romance with the shepherd Endymion. The plot is helter-skelter, Anne Ridler’s translation of Giovanni Faustini’s libretto is sassy and fun. I can’t imagine being more entertained by an evening’s chamber opera.

Five hours with five counter tenors: a virtuoso stand-off which impresses, even astounds, but ultimately exhausts even the most dedicated audience by its refusal to cut a single note of what becomes a very long, florid opera by Jommelli. 

Michelangelo is an iconic figure of the High Renaissance, whose profound – and possibly unparalleled – impact upon western art continues to resonate down the ages. Together with Leonardo, he epitomises the “Renaissance Man”, more a concept representing a creative ideal than a mere colloquialism for “polymath”.

British Youth Opera have been fostering the best of young British vocal talent for 25 years, and it’s a delight to see them celebrating their anniversary this year with a work precisely as old as they are: Judith Weir’s A Night at the Chinese Opera dates from 1987, and made for a lively showcase for these rising stars at London’s Peacock Theatre last night.

Le 8 novembre 2015, Sir John Eliot Gardiner interprète l'Orfeo de Monteverdi en version de concert dans la Galerie des Glaces. La qualité sans failles de The English Baroque Soloists, The Monteverdi Choir, et de chaque chanteur soliste a résulté en une interprétation qu'on pourrait qualifier de parfaite...en tout cas inoubliable.