Artiste: Gabriela Iştoc

The chance to watch their finely gauged interpretation unfold on the Royal Festival Hall platform was a privilege.

The London Philharmonic’s concert performance of Enescu’s Oedipe proves an extravagant but triumphant way to launch the orchestra’s new Royal Festival Hall season.

Vladimir Jurowski and the LPO gave a stunning performance of Enescu’s operatic masterpiece, despite a dramatically limp concert staging.

“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. 

Opera North's revival of L'elisir d'amour directed by Daniel Slater at the Grand Theatre, Leeds, still bubbles with life, in spite of its age.

Tonight was the Dublin première of Dvořák’s opera Rusalka, and the most surprising fact about this is that it took 112 years for this enchanting opera to make its debut here. For, as tonight’s performance so aptly illustrated, Rusalka is a glorious work on so many different levels: it has hauntingly beautiful melodies, daring orchestral harmonies and an enchanting but ultimately tragic love story.