Performer: Maximilian Schmitt

The Flying Dutchman – or Le Vaisseau fantôme as it is known in French – makes a fleeting appearance at the Grand Théâtre de Provence in a rousing concert performance conducted by the dapper François-Xavier Roth. 

Illness caused two baritones to bow out, plus an indisposed tenor on the night of the first performance. But soprano Golda Schultz, the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus and Orchestra, led by Franz Welser-Möst, ultimately revelled in Haydn’s late masterpiece.

Beethoven lovers were expecting an authentic recreation of the first version of Fidelio but instead they got Leonore à la Jacobs.

This wasn’t just any concert. The Zurich Tonhalle’s new season was opening in a brand new hall in the trendy Züri-West quarter of the city.

Mozart was supposed to be the composer of La clemenza di Tito but it was really a critical edition of Metastasio’s opus by Teodor Currentzis.

Zubin Mehta brings a great deal of class to most things he conducts at La Scala, and here his bright account of Mozart's score was a joy.