Artiste: Nicholas Morris

Olivia Fuchs directs Monteverdi's early opera in a sparse staging with a consistently fine cast. 

Emily Howard's new opera, an Aldeburgh Festival commission, takes an ambitiously modernist approach to a dystopian story of loneliness: a tough, but thought-provoking work. 

One of Edinburgh's most cherished choirs, The Calton Consort has, in its nine-year history, amassed a loyal following. Under the direction of former Cambridge choral scholar, Jason Orringe, it has given memorable performances of many challenging works, such as Stravinsky's Les Noces, and Schnittke's Choir Concerto.

While on a wildlife safari holiday in the Okavango Delta in northern Botswana, Alexander McCall Smith asked his guides to take him across a river to where two primatologists were researching baboon behaviour. Baboons are matriarchal and uniquely in common with humans, high status is inherited.