Performer: Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra

There are many ways to experience a piece of music. Hearing the Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra perform Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with a mammoth chorus of amateur singers drawn from the community offered a reminder that a masterwork need not be perfectly rendered to be aesthetically satisfying.

Two English operas featuring strong central female characters, men called by the sea, and tragedy wrought by overwhelming, irresistible forces form a double bill in Cleveland, directed by David Bamberger.