Performer: Martijn Cornet

Louis Andriessen’s new opera is a masterly expedition into the grand and grotesque mind of Athanasius Kircher, polymath and fantastist, but it is hampered by a clumsy libretto.

Arnoud Noordegraaf’s As Big as the Sky received more than the usual attention at the Holland Festival due to his collaboration with Ai Weiwei.

Channelling Conchita Wurst in its starring role, the Early Opera Company's production of this rare Rameau opera is bursting with laughs and memorable performances from a strong young cast. 

Classical music is often portayed as being very serious, which is part of what makes it seem inaccessible at times. But this is a mistake: there are plenty of pieces that are, in a word, fun.

Ambroise Thomas’s Hamlet has riled and infuriated ever since its 1868 première, though for many it is merely an object of derision: one 1869 correspondent to the satirical magazine Punch admits not having seen the work but nevertheless disparages it as ‘Omelette’, a musical ‘burlesque’, and pillories Thomas’s fondness for drinking songs with the lines ‘To drink or not to drink? That is now the que

Tschaikowskis Oper ist lange in den Archiven verschwunden, doch das Ausgraben lohnt: Nicht nur für Freunde der russischen Opernliteratur oder Tschaikowski ein Genuss, und auf jeden Fall eine Erweiterung des musikalischen Horizontes.