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The Best Bits
27th February 2026
Hello friends,
Welcome to this week's newsletter. Last week, thousands of you watched Anna Netrebko and Jonas Kaufmann in La Gioconda, our top streaming recommendation (and still available). Well, the irrepressible diva is back, this time live and in Vienna for Verdi's Nabucco. (Incidentally, yesterday's scheduled stream of Luisa Miller was postponed due to a singer indisposition... it's currently been rescheduled to Sunday.)
It's a week full of birthdays and anniversaries – Simone Young, Rossini, Chopin, Swan Lake – so we can point you towards our rich archive of content on Bachtrack!
Mark, Elisabeth and Jo
SPONSORED
Longborough Festival Opera
Picnic hampers at the ready! Booking opens on Monday for the 2026 Longborough Festival Opera season. Wagner specialist Anthony Negus conducting Tristan und Isolde is self-recommending, but there are new productions of Orlando, Macbeth and Hansel and Gretel too.
The Bachtrack Insiders
Personal picks from our site
Mark Pullinger Editor
Die schöne Müllerin
On Wednesday I saw baritone Konstantin Krimmel sing an outstanding Die schöne Müllerin at Wigmore Hall with pianist Ammiel Bushakevitz, made all the more devastating because the hall projected surtitles onto the wall, negating the need to bury your head in the programme. Happily, it was live-streamed, so you can watch it too.
Elisabeth Schwarz Editor
Gioachino Rossini
It's another year when poor old Gioachino Rossini, born on 29th February 1792, misses out on his birthday. In his honour, read Mark's interview with Anna Bonitatibus who holds Rossini dearest to her heart: his operas, his false modesty and the challenges of singing his music.
Jo Johnson Head of Marketing
Happy birthday, Simone Young 🎁
Simone Young, currently Chief Conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, has been quietly breaking the glass ceiling throughout her career – the first female to hold a position at Opera Australia, the first female to conduct the Vienna State Opera and Vienna Philharmonic, the first female to record a complete Ring cycle and the first to conduct one at Bayreuth. She was also the first female conductor to hold her current position, which happily was extended last year for an extra three years until 2029. She topped our list of busiest women conductors in 2025 in our Classical Music Statistics – if you haven't yet read through these, click below for some fascinating insights.
What's hot?
Frédéric Chopin
"Hats off, gentlemen – a genius!" Frédéric Chopin was born on 1st March 1810 in the Polish town of Żelazowa Wola. Enjoy diving into our new playlist, featuring some incredible pianists from Martha Argerich to Yunchan Lim!
Out and about
Our tips on what to see live in the UK this week
SPONSORED
Barbara Hannigan & Bar Avni
Barbican Hall, London
5th March
Laura Bowler's new work for voice and orchestra is inspired by Booker and Nobel Prize-winning author Han Kang’s The White Book – a poetic meditation on colour, grief and the human spirit. Bar Avni conducts the London Symphony Orchestra and soprano Barbara Hannigan, for whom the work was written, before Hannigan returns to lead the LSO herself in Ligeti’s ground-breaking masterpiece and Strauss’ orchestral epic.
Tarmo Peltokoski & Yuja Wang
Barbican Hall, London
1st March
Feel the energy of Rautavaara’s joyously rhythmic First Piano Concerto, and journey to Wagner’s fantastical world of gods, giants and Rhinemaidens with the London Symphony Orchestra.
Mahler Symphony no. 2
Usher Hall, Edinburgh
1st March
In 1965, Sir Donald Runnicles sang Mahler 2 with the Edinburgh Festival Chorus as a young boy. Now, he returns to the BBC Scottish Symphony and that very same choir in one of the most powerful choral works ever written.
Mary, Queen of Scots
Sadler's Wells, London
5th-8th March
A major new production from Scottish Ballet’s choreographer-in-residence, Sophie Laplane and co-creator, James Bonas (The Crucible), draws on the complex relationship between two extraordinary queens, Elizabeth I of England and her cousin, Mary.
Live to your living room
The best streamed content to watch this week
Nabucco
Wiener Staatsoper
Va, pensiero! Anna Netrebko sings Abigaille opposite Amartuvshin Enkhbat's Nabucco in a revival of Verdi's early biblical opera.
Live 5th March
London
Time and Truth triumph as Jeanine De Bique sings Handel at Wigmore Hall
Live 28th February
Frankfurt am Main
Philippe Herreweghe conducts Bach and Schubert's Unfinished Symphony
Live 27th February
Three of the best...
...ways to celebrate Swan Lake
Swan Lake
Swan Lake had its premiere on 4th March 1877, although it was the 1895 revival that cemented its place in ballet history. In Paris, Amandine Albisson dances Odette/Odile and Mathieu Ganio is Siegfried in Rudolf Nureyev's classic production.
Sir Matthew Bourne on Swan Lake
One of the most daring productions of Swan Lake was choreographed by Sir Matthew Bourne. Here, he talks to dance editor Deborah Weiss talks about his passion for storytelling in dance, and radical gender-flipped staging.
Events, reviews and more
Catch a production of Swan Lake or read reviews or articles...
Riddle Me This...
Whom have we hidden in the anagram below?
Critics' Corner
What our reviewers watched
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Photography credits:
Portrait of Frédéric Chopin by Maria Wodzińska (1836) © Public domain
Barbara Hannigan © LSO/Mark Allan;
Nabucco © Michael Pöhn | Wiener Staatsoper, Jeanine De Bique © Tim Tronckoe, Seohyun Kim / Daniel Müller-Schott © Shinjoong Kim / Uwe Arens, Philippe Herreweghe © Michiel Hendryckx;
Le Lac des cygnes © Svetlana Loboff | OnP;Alexandra Ionis, Simon O’Neill and Simone Young © Jay Patel, Florian Pohl and Xue Lin in Xie Xin’s The Moon in the Ocean © Kiran West, Manfred Honeck conducts the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra © Josh Milteer
