Explore Ensemble, EXAUDI, St John's Smith Square review - making sense of Nono

★★★★ EXPLORE ENSEMBLE, EXAUDI Making sense of Nono

Riveting 'Principal Sound' event delivers the luminous rewards of austerity modernism

This was an evening of silence and shadow, a chill, moonlit meditation, where each sound demanded forensic attention. Enter the world of Luigi Nono and his admirers.

Having a Verdi ball: conductor Richard Farnes on Opera North's upcoming production

HAVING A VERDI BALL Conductor Richard Farnes on Opera North's new 'Un ballo in maschera'

Hugely respected former Music Director on returning for 'Un ballo in maschera'

Commentators have, over the years, variously described Un ballo in maschera (A Masked Ball) as all things to all people: Verdi’s Tristan und Isolde, Verdi’s masterpiece, Verdi’s Don Giovanni, a pure love poem, and much more. It seems to me to be one of his most consistently exciting works, perfectly proportioned and dramatically astute.

Grosvenor, Filarmonica della Scala, Chailly, Barbican review - Tchaikovsky’s force of destiny shines bright

★★★★ GROSVENOR, FILARMONICA DELLA SCALA, CHAILLY Dramatic flair and sonic luxury at the Barbican

Dramatic flair and sonic luxury from the Italians in a night to remember

You could probably guess from the assembling audience that the orchestra making its Barbican debut last night came from Milan. That many mink coats rarely congregate in a London concert hall.

Breaking the Rules, LSO St Luke's review – music and murder with Gesualdo

★★★★ BREAKING THE RULES, LSO ST LUKE'S Music and murder with Gesualdo

Clare Norburn's concert drama receives a welcome London premiere

The “concert drama” is on the up, offering audiences a mingled-genre means to experience music and its context simultaneously. The author and singer Clare Norburn has an absolute peach of a story to tell in the "imagined testimony of Carlo Gesualdo, composer and murderer," the legendary musician who knifed to death his wife and her lover upon catching them in flagrante.

Cavalleria Rusticana/Pagliacci, Royal Opera review - one tenor, two samey brutes

★★★ CAVALLERIA RUSTICANA/PAGLIACCI, ROYAL OPERA HOUSE One tenor, two samey brutes

Bryan Hymel's strong-man double-act outshone by Elīna Garanča's Santuzza

Are "Cav and Pag" inseparable? Clearly not, to judge from Opera North's "Little Greats" and elsewhere, but it's still the pairing of choice. Tricky, because as music-theatre, Leoncavallo's drama of rough life entwined with rough art stands high above Mascagni's Sicilian village shenanigans, despite great scenes and numbers in both.

Ferrari: Race to Immortality review - death and glory in 1950s motor racing

★★★★ FERRARI: RACE TO IMMORTALITY Death and glory in 1950s motor racing

Early years of the legendary red cars from Maranello

And so the mini-boom in motor racing movies continues, this time with a look back at the history of Ferrari and the intense on-track battles of the 1950s, a decade in which the Scuderia won four of its 15 Formula One World Drivers Championships.