En direct, Vidéo: Rechercher des critiques de musique classique, opéra et ballet | Ed Ballard

A great return appearance for English Touring Opera's Puccini double bill opening its spring tour at the Hackney Empire.

“If music be the food of love, play on, give me excess of it.” There was certainly plenty of Shakespeare-inspired music on the bill for the London Philharmonic Orchestra's celebration of The Bard. 

A superbly-sung title role from Ed Ballard is the best part of this otherwise patchy, well-sung but ultimately unmoving Werther from English Touring Opera. 

Luke Styles' all-male Macbeth for Glyndebourne, with a libretto lifted straight from Shakespeare by Ted Huffman, explores the bloody tragedy afresh – with a defiantly cool ending. 

Does the devil get the best tunes? Nick Shadow steals the show in the Royal Academy's production of The Rake's Progress.

Royal Academy Opera's thoroughly competent Suor Angelica precedes a fabulously entertaining Gianni Schicchi, with a top drawer performance from Haobin Wang in the title role.

Jonathan Dove's joyous old-fashioned fairytale, magically realised in a very stylish production including some wonderfully original puppetry, is a fabulous talent showcase from British Youth Opera - and fun for all the family. 

Drawing a line of suffering from ancient Rome to Golgotha to the concentration camps, Britten’s blank postcard from Belsen strikes to the heart of humanity. The Rape of Lucretia is brilliantly realised by the Royal Academy of Music.

Over the years, I’ve generally found performances at Royal Academy Opera to be enjoyable and straightforward. This production of Cendrillon went rather beyond that.

There is usually a good reason why operas which lie unperformed for many years do so – some flaw in the plotting, characters who fail to interest an audience, or musical langueurs. It was therefore with somewhat low expectations that I went to Hampstead Garden Opera’s production of Vaughan Williams’ Hugh the Drover. Imagine my surprise and delight.

We are in a small Cotswold market town in 1810. It's the height of the Napoleonic wars, fear of Bonapartist spies abounds. A stranger rolls into town - a roving man whose profession is rounding up wild horses for the military - and wins the hand of the daughter of the town Constable in a bare knuckle prize fight. Somehow, you just know that there's going to be trouble.