The instruments not only balanced perfectly with the voices, but gave us some delectable textures of sound – edginess from ...

In the first few decades of the 18 th century, the chattering classes of British cities were obsessed by Italian music – enjoyment of its elegance and sophistication (with just ...

English National Opera’s revival of HMS Pinafore promises buoyancy but quickly runs aground. Despite strong musical work and ...

The York Early Music Christmas Festival 2025 review – Helen Charlston and Yorkshire Bach Choir on the same day ...

Jetske Mijnssen’s new staging of Ariodante arrives with a clear conceptual stamp: Handel reframed as a Chekhovian family ...

It is 75 years since the Chelsea Opera Group was founded by David Cairns, Colin Davis and Stephen Gray, all students at Oxford at the time. Its longevity is brought into focus by considering that it ...

As part of the Philharmonia’s 80th anniversary season, this performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 7 should have been a showcase of precision and polish. In many ways it was: Jakub Hrůša’s command of ...

Marin Alsop conducts the Philharmonia Orchestra in Walton’s Façade and a revised version of Laura Karpman’s opera Balls at Royal Festival Hall. Marin Alsop, with her usual brisk, economic style ...

You can always rely on the Ryedale Festival to come up with inventive and engaging ideas, so it was no surprise that, not content with the hugely successful Summer Festival in July, they have now ...

17 years on from its first outing, Christopher Alden’s surrealist staging of Partenope remains one of ENO’s most stylish and subversive Handel productions. Reimagining the Neapolitan heroine as a ...