Instrument: Choir / Chorus

Pierre Audi is remembered in words and music as the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence receives $1m – the richest prize in classical music – at Stockholm’s Konserthuset. 

Frederick Delius' gigantic score is worth a listen but Christopher Luscombe doesn’t circumvent the problems of directing this opera in 2025. 

The 74th Wexford Opera Festival opens with the French revision of Il trovatore that Verdi reforged for the Paris Opera. 

Digital projections make Opera Ballet Vlaanderen’s Parsifal seem alienating and strange, but the singing is terrific and the orchestra sounds sensational.

Rossini’s Petite messe solennelle, stripped to piano, harmonium and voices, unfolds like a musical sphinx in the Balthasar-Neumann’s performance at the Elbphilharmonie. 

Herheim’s Fledermaus is a risky experiment that, miraculously, works – at least in a city that knows it so intimately.