So why not rewrite The Magic Flute with a new text and a heavily reconstructed plot? After all, the original was just a pantomime, albeit one that embodied one or two big issues of the day (1791), but essentially popular theatre with a text by a well-known comic actor, Emanuel Schikaneder, who sang and acted in the first production.

With the fast-approaching anniversary of the latest war in Europe, our culture’s continued fascination with World War Two gets a contemporary boost from Trouble in Butetown at the Donmar Warehouse.

Dvořák: Symphonies 1-9, Legends, Slavonic Dances Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra/José Serebrier (Warner Classics)

What a fascinating work Mahler's Ninth Symphony is! Marvellous and astonishing as well, of course. But these qualities are, so to speak, written into the score (did Mahler ever compose anything not designed to astonish?).

If like me you regard the ending of Janáček’s Jenůfa as one of the most moving scenes in all opera, you might care to consider how it would be possible to deflate it in spite of the best singing imaginable.

If Don Giovanni is not the greatest opera ever written, it’s at least one of the very, very few that even in erratic performances have the capacity to seem it.

A massive musical hope for the future is what we all need right now, after 14 stop/semi-start months and a threatened decimation of the concert and opera scene, the danger of which isn't over yet. This year’s BBC Cardiff Singer of the World delivered that hope in frissons and plenty of tear-inducing moments, even though the live audience in St David’s Hall consisted of only three empathetic judges.

I’ve been missing the sound of applause. That realisation dawned on me on the couple of occasions when it broke out spontaneously in last night’s Prom. There was no audience at Hoddinott Hall in Cardiff Bay, so these particular bouts of hand-clapping were coming from the orchestral musicians of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales.

Ives: Symphonies 3&4 San Francisco Symphony Orchestra/Michael Tilson Thomas (SFS Media)

When a band claims a crowd is the loudest of the tour, you can usually guarantee they've said it on every other date too. But for one sweaty night in Cardiff, you had to believe them. Bombay Bicycle Club returned after a six-year absence and were greeted in the Welsh capital like long-awaited saviours. No chorus was left unsung, no build-up left unclapped, and no breakdown unshimmied.