Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Sophie Bevan

Max Hoehn takes Così‘s subtitle, La scuola degli amanti (The School for Lovers), and connects it to Monty Python’s sex education sketch in The Meaning of Life. What larks, eh? 

A concert journey from Ariadne's despair to Schumann's elation, and a compelling demonstration of Wigglesworth's gifts as both composer and conductor.

Ryan Wigglesworth conducts the UK premiere of his own Magnificat with The Hallé in Bridgewater Hall. 

When done as well as this, a "concert staging" is not oxymoronic, but a precise term for a valuable mode of presentation.

Some exceptional singing intermittently enlivens Daniel Slater's production which, dramatically and emotionally, takes time to ignite.   

It’s the title character who gets the best tunes in Ariodante and Irish mezzo-soprano Paula Murrihy ate them up. 

Robert Murray is the standout performer in a night of waltzes and numbers from operetta.

Director Louisa Muller overcomes the problems of opening a ghost story in natural daylight to deliver plenty of operatic chills. 

Laurence Cummings conducting the FestspielOrchester Göttingen and the NDR Chor, with an exemplary suite of vocal soloists, but a slightly problematic venue, sweep all before them in the Handel Festival of 2020.

Sir Mark Elder conducts The Hallé in Berlioz, Saint-Saëns with Stephen Hough and Vaughan Williams

Carsen's scaled-down Ring makes a timely comeback with a melancholy message of decay.

A conductorless performance of Handel's masterpiece lights up the Barbican.

Rouvali's role as the Phiharmonia's Principal Guest Conductor may prove to be one of the most exciting musical relationships in London, based on their remarkable performance of Eine Alpensinfonie that headlined an all-Strauss programme.

It was only in the final moments of The Firebird that the orchestra let themselves go, following a series of sensitive and transparent performances.

John Butt’s revisitation of the Handel oratorio Samson at the Halle Handel Festival displayed this treasured work in an illuminating and satisfying light.

Ivor Bolton and David McVicar have teamed up to create an unapologetically Brittenian Gloriana, with Anna Caterina Antonacci at the top of a great cast

Adès opera resists explanation, and the ambiguity of the story drives much of its compelling nature. 

Netia Jones' new production taps into Britten's silvery underworld in a staging dominated by video wizardry which is hypnotically beautiful, but comes at a price.

Luis Buñuel's derision at the sense of entitlement of over-privileged, self-righteous prigs shines through a high quality operatic adaptation.

An operatic take on The Winter's Tale – categorised as one of Shakespeare’s ‘problem plays’ – premieres at English National Opera. 

Renée Fleming has decided the time is right to bow out gracefully from the operatic stage, choosing her signature role to bid the fondest of farewells to London.

The Salzburg Festival audience warmly applauded Thomas Adès, Tom Cairns and all musicians for a rounded and gripping première.

Johan Reuter leads an all star cast in a revelatory performance of George Enescu's masterpiece, aided by spectacular La Fura dels Baus staging.

Ryan Wigglesworth conducts the Hallé in works by Bach, Stravinsky and Schumann.

The Aurora Orchestra defies tradition and turns Britten’s ghostly Turn of the Screw into a kind of a dramatic ‘installation’

Stimulating sounds from the Academy of Ancient Music in late night Bach at the Proms. 

With the help of a star-studded cast, Barrie Kosky's imaginative staging delivers a production of Handel's Saul which has just about everything going for it: choreography, voices, acting. A must-see.

The Philharmonia Orchestra's Paris: City of Light 1900–1950 reaches its climax, where Debussy and Messiaen combine for a radiant, dazzling programme. Pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard crowns an emotionally intense Turangalîla-symphonie.

Lothar Koenigs conducts a stylish, colourful Magic Flute inspired by Magritte. 

“Here be dragons!” warned seafaring maps of yore, denoting uncharted territories. Martin Kušej, undertaking his first Royal Opera exploration, excised the sea monster from his vision of Mozart’s Idomeneo. 

An imaginative and wonderfully performed programme of ecclesiastical works wrought in peril, alienation and exile.

It is a myth that pearls can be formed from grit and so it proved here, where a vastly underwhelming musical performance sullied a much improved production of Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers. 

A superb concert performance of Der Rosenkavalier with the CBSO and Andris Nelsons receives a rapturous reception. 

Ryan Wigglesworth puts in a sublime performance of Mozart's Piano Concerto no. 9, and Sophie Bevan sings Berlioz's Les Nuits d'Été with Royal Northern Sinfonia. 

Billed as a “concert hall staging”, the Academy of Ancient Music’s season-opening performance of Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo was brilliantly staged at the Barbican by the director Orpha Phelan and designer Caroline Hughes – as close as one could get to a full production in a concert hall without a pit.

Most striking about the Academy of Ancient Music’s playing is its neatness: every phrase is so precisely shaped, so clean. Presumably this is down to impeccable preparation as well as an intrinsic feeling in the group for how Baroque music should sound. But their playing also sounds fresh, new, surprising.

The late-night Proms usually offer something very different from the regular programme, be it chamber music, jazz, or choral music. Thursday evening’s Prom was no exception to this, featuring the music of the somewhat forgotten Ivor Novello, sometimes considered the Andrew Lloyd Webber of the early 20th Century.

As dappled evening sunshine filled the historic Canongate Kirk, near the foot of the Royal Mile, a large audience filled the powder blue-coloured pews under the Colours of the King’s Own Scottish Borderers and the Royal Scots for an evening of music by Handel.

A trip to the opera at Garsington in its new, idyllic setting at Wormsley Estate, Buckinghamshire, is a fine treat even in the rain. And with a Don Giovanni production which, despite plenty of oddities, is light-hearted and often witty, an excellent evening of high-class entertainment is guaranteed.

English National opera's first première of 2012 is a revival of David McVicar's 2008 production of Richard Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier, in splendid rococo period setting. They pulled out all the stops in casting: the four lead roles were all sung and acted wonderfully by English singers at the very top of their game.

Rameau's Castor et Pollux, his take on the Greek myth of two brothers so close that Pollux is prepared to descend into hell in the place of Castor, isn't exactly one of the standards of the repertoire.

Easter wouldn't be complete without a performance of the St Matthew Passion, Johann Sebastian Bach's epic and intense interpretation of the crucifixion.

Jonathan Miller's much-loved production of The Mikado for English National Opera is now 25 years old and well remembered. But not, I confess by me. My last experience of Gilbert and Sullivan was on the other side of the curtain, as a sister, cousin or aunt in a school production of HMS Pinafore, an experience sufficiently scarring that I resolved never to go to a G&S opera again.

On Saturday night, a large and diverse audience gathered in Leeds Town Hall to hear Leeds Festival Chorus and the Northern Sinfonia perform an all-Mozart programme, which provided an appropriate and atmospheric end to the composer's birthday week. The evening began with the Symphony No.40 in G Minor.

Handel’s opera Radamisto received a welcome staging at the English National Opera last Thursday, following on from their successful productions of Agrippina and Partenope in recent years.

Arriesgada y deliciosa recreación humorística de la obra mozartiana en clave de cine mudo, lejos de cualquier simbología o pretensión de profundidad

Mark Padmore est aujourd’hui l’un des Évangélistes les plus renommés et expérimentés de la scène internationale. Pour ce concert qu'il dirige aussi il a choisi un effectif de 16 chanteurs pour l'ensemble des parties vocales.

En ouverture de leur saison et préfigurant la célébration des 250 ans de Mozart, le Classical Opera, offrait au Barbican un concert de l’inachevé. Un programme monumental et une interprétation fidèle, pour un rendu presque trop soigné.