Instrument: Vocal Ensemble

Intrada's concert on the Great Feast Day of Orthodox Christmas featured first performances of music by Peter the Great's favorite composer Vasily Titov in more than 300 years.

*****

A Rossinian talent show in Pesaro: Il viaggio a Reims

David Karlin, 27 Nov

Rossini's operatic sketch show provides a great showcase for the talents of the festival's academy for young singers.

****1

Technology to the rescue in Zurich's new staging of Boris Godunov

Laura Servidei, 20 Sep

The Zurich Opernhaus tackles the pandemic with an innovative strategy: instead of reducing the size of orchestra and chorus (as many other European opera houses) it removes them from the theatre altogether.

A timely Mother of Us All at the Metropolitan Museum

Kurt Gottschalk, 11 Feb

The Mother of Us All isn’t an easy work and it’s far from one of Stein’s best pieces of writing. But in this centenary of women’s suffrage, it’s an important one.

***11

Light amid darkness: stellar performance from Tenebrae

David Larkin, 22 Jan

An exquisite evening of British 20th-century choral music from Tenebrae under Nigel Short at the Sydney Festival, with outstanding renditions of the music of Parry, Bingham and Stanford.

*****

Tenebrae performs Tenebrae at the Sydney Festival

Zoltán Szabó, 21 Jan

British choir Tenebrae performs Masterworks of the Renaissance in Sydney's City Recital Hall.

****1

A very palpable hit: Hamlet in Cologne

Matthew Rye, 24 Nov

Brett Dean's operatic reworking of Shakespeare's Hamlet receives its German premiere in a powerful new staging by the work's librettist Matthew Jocelyn.

****1

Performers

Cardinall's Musick, The Ensemble vocal Incanto La Capella Reial de Catalunya Les Saisons The King's Singers