Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Tim Mead

Despite excellent vocal performances, David Alden’s production of Giulio Cesare in Egitto aims at irreverence but overplays the comedy.

Ruth Knight untangles Handel's Rodelinda, directing a new staging at Garsington which features a feast of fine singing. 

Laurence Cummings and the AAM serve up Messiah-shaped serenity at the Barbican. 

Handel's Giulio Cesare is heavily abridged in Sydney, but generally well-performed musically, albeit with a rather awkward staging by Neil Armfield. 

Handel's last English oratorio Jephtha is beautifully performed by Christophe Rousset and Les Talens Lyriques in Halle, although the drama is a bit slow off the mark. 

A claim was made not to authenticity, but merely to “a chance to hear the work anew”.

A glorious Esther from Laurence Cummings and the London Handel Singers and Orchestra, with a classy line-up of soloists led by Nardus Williams and Tim Mead.

The Australian director's 2019 production of Handel's satirical comedy-thriller arrives in Amsterdam, with a cast led by the fabulous Stéphanie d'Oustrac. 

A strong revival cast, conducted by Dalia Stasevska, demonstrate why Sir Peter Hall's 1981 vintage staging of Britten’s A Midsummer Night's Dream is such a classic. 

Pergolesi is sung beautifully, Stravinsky performed with fun and verve, but the Royal Albert Hall is a big place for a chamber orchestra.

Even outstanding soloists had to wait their turn in this Rolls-Royce performance in Aix-en-Provence.

Benjamin Britten's final opera hasn't been staged by The Royal Opera in over 25 years, but his setting of Thomas Mann's Death in Venice receives a great new production by Sir David McVicar. 

James Darrah stages Handel's sensual oratorio for Festival O, a feast of wonderful singing. 

Poor diction and lack of heft from some principals mar the composer's last great oratorio. 

Robert Carsen's riotous production of Rinaldo returns to the Sussex Downs, a schoolboy fantasy colliding crusading knights with St Trinian's bad girls. 

Handel's oratorio Susanna is often considered to be less than consistently dramatic and this performance in the Halle Handel Festival did little to dispel that view.

A mixed bill of modern work showcases the diverse talents of The Royal Ballet.

The director's world-renowned 1991 conception of Benjamin Britten's 1960 operaA Midsummer Night's Dream finally makes it to America. 

A great cast of exciting singers seals a success in Lille, despite a new production which fails to convince.

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

A flamboyant production and a wonderful cast of singers seals a big success for this gem of the early Baroque.

A mixed programme of Corelli, Handel and Pergolesi brings beauty and spiritual intensity, as well as some empowered erotic playfulness, to an evening with the Academy of Ancient Music. 

Claus Guth's production of Handel's last oratorio lands in Paris, where William Christie leads Les Arts Florissants and a stellar cast. 

Opera Vlaanderen revives a production of Handel's Agrippina based on American soap operas of the 1980s.

Despite the beautiful sensitivity of La Nuova Musica, coupled with some truly sublime singing, the silliness of Cavalli’s opera is sometimes overplayed in this semi-staged production; less is, sometimes, more.

The Dunedins venture south to show London how to play and sing Purcell.

Pianist, composer and polymath Stephen Hough joined The Prince Consort for an evening of intriguing and startling gems, and a world première of Hough’s own witty, intricate, intimate and beautifully arresting art songs.

Tim Mead impresses; William Christie and Les Arts Florissants lack the heft to fill the Royal Albert Hall.

“Out of this wood do not desire to go!” Tytania orders Bottom. Glyndebourne's revival of Peter Hall's classic production of A Midsummer Night's Dream is eerily enchanting, weaving its spell right from the queasy double bass glissandos, which slither into Britten's score.

Shorn of Katie Mitchell’s production and presented on the Barbican Hall’s stage with only the occasional prop, George Benjamin's modern masterpiece Written on Skin came across with even greater intensity.

First seen at the innovative, fearless Aix-en-Provence festival three summers ago, George Benjamin’s riveting, grisly Written on Skin has arrived in New York. 

Lucy Crowe and Tim Mead give a thoughtful rendition of Pergolesi's Stabat Mater at a Lenten concert by La Nuova Musica at St John's Smith Square.

With his one act opera The Rise of Spinoza Theo Loevendie wrought an attractive opera, that may well become part of the repertoire

Chalk and talk is dead. Teachers scramble to bring history to life in classrooms up and down the country through dressing-up days and interactive whiteboard activities. Few, however, can equal Robert Carsen’s efforts in his riotous production of Handel’s Rinaldo, here on its first Glyndebourne revival since its 2011 première.

Profound, fair and thought-provoking, Handel's Theodora argues for faith as a personal journey, not a political decree. The English Concert brought their rendition to the Barbican Centre in London.

Ludus Baroque was founded in 1997 by Richard Neville-Towle, the Director of Music at Cannongate Kirk on the Royal Mile, and has built up a reputation for excellence as the group comprises hand-picked specialist Baroque players and singers from around the UK.

Premièred in 1973, Death in Venice was Britten’s last opera and therefore his last chance to create a big starring role for his lifelong partner Peter Pears.

The decision to appoint the Early Opera Company and Scanner as this year’s associate artists says much about Spitalfields Music Summer Festival, an eclectic cornucopia of classical and non-classical music concerts by professional and amateur artists, bespoke tours, and family activities.

In brief introductory remarks, founder and director of Ludus Baroque Richard Neville-Towle outlined three significant features of the performance. The indicated presence of a crib signified that this was to be a devotional performance, and being able to make sense of this is possibly what divides the faithful from the faithless.

The full name of Handel's opera is Giulio Cesare in Egitto: it depicts a historically loose version of Caesar's sojourn in Alexandria, during which Pompey is murdered, Ptolemy is killed in battle and Cleopatra is installed as Queen.

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.

Written in the late 1740s, Judas Maccabaeus was a clever attempt by the ever-wily Handel to capitalize on recent successes, both his own – in the form of the now-established oratorio concert – and that of the nation, in the wake of the recent victories over Bonnie Prince Charlie’s Scottish rebels.

Although I never had the pleasure of attending Garsington Opera in its original setting in Garsington Manor, I was very impressed by their new premises at Wormsley, Buckinghamshire, with their spectacular-looking and also comfortable opera pavilion.

London audiences had never seen anything quite like it. Fireworks, fountains and live sparrows were just a few of the special effects livening up the premiere of Handel's Rinaldo way back in 1711, prompting the Spectator's critic to compare it sniffily to a Punch and Judy show. Fast forward two hundred years, and you might wonder if there's been any progress.

To Glyndebourne, for the opening night of Handel's Rinaldo, the first of his operas to be staged in London in 1711, when he was just 26 years old.

In 2008, conductor Thomas Hengelbrock rediscovered Niobe, Regina di Tebe, written in 1687 by the Venetian-born, German-based composer Agostino Steffani. Although now little remembered, Steffani was a world-famous composer in his day and a man of many talents who became a diplomat and bishop as well as being a musician.

Mit bestgehörten Ensembles von ABO&C und sensationellen Solisten endete nicht nur das Oratorium im Triumph, sondern auch der niederländische Teil Handel's Heroines in einem Jungbrunnen-Spektakel mit glücklicher Koinzidenz.

El Teatro Real revive el Achille in Sciro con una excelente producción a cargo de la directora de escena Mariame Clément y el director musical Ivor Bolton.

Eine Nachfeier CVGs 50. Jubiläums mit perfektionslüsternder Vertrautheit und Geborgenheit der Stimmen in Anbetracht werklicher Durchdringung, prächtiger Berichtspflicht und Menschlichmachung.

Paul McCreesh fand mit seinem Ensemble eine herzerwärmende Mischung universell wohltuender Festlichkeit.