Don Giovanni, Glyndebourne review - stunning, exuberant production reveals human nature in all its complexity

★★★★ DON GIOVANNI, GLYNDEBOURNE Stunning, exuberant production

Julia Hansen’s multi-tiered set looks like something out of a Wes Anderson movie

Why stage Don Giovanni in a post #MeToo world? That’s the question most frequently being asked about Mariame Clément’s new production for Glyndebourne and on its opening night she delivered a response that was as conceptually subtle as it was visually flamboyant.

Bavouzet, Manchester Camerata, Takács-Nagy, Stoller Hall, Manchester review - spirit of the 1780s

★★★★ BAVOUZET, MANCHESTER CAMERATA, TAKACS-NAGY Spirit of the 1780s

Historically informed playing and a delight to hear

It was very much the formula as before, as Jean-Efflam Bavouzet and Gábor Takács-Nagy moved their edition of the Mozart piano concertos a step closer to completion with Nos. 11, 12 and 13.

The Magic Flute, Welsh National Opera review - Mozart remodelled and remuddled

★★ THE MAGIC FLUTE, WELSH NATIONAL OPERA Mozart remodelled and remuddled

Not good enough musically to redeem a trashy spectacle

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.

Hewitt, BBC Philharmonic, Davis, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - the classical style

★★★★★ HEWITT, BBC PHILHARMONIC, DAVIS, BRIDGEWATER HALL The classical style

A masterclass, with dance at its heart, from two expert guests

Two intriguing themes and two great guest artists were offered by the BBC Philharmonic to their Saturday night audience in the Bridgewater Hall: the themes were what “classicism” really is, and the variety of music inspired by (or written for) dance.

Lowe, The Mozartists, Page, Wigmore Hall - an education, not quite a triumph

★ LOWE, THE MOZARTISTS, PAGE, WIGMORE HALL An education, not quite a triumph

Curate’s-egg focus on the year 1773 finds first-rate performers sometimes in trouble

Ian Page’s “journey of a lifetime” with his Mozartists, taking the greatest genius year by year, lands us in 1773 with the adolescent Mozart's first durable crowdpleaser, the pretty-brilliant motet for soprano and orchestra Exsultate, jubilate (last night was its 250th anniversary). The boy wonder still needs annual support from his elders, though, and as usual we got more than just a sampler of what else was going on musically in that year.

Faust, Tamestit, EBS, Gardiner, St Martin-in-the-Fields review - countless shades of brilliant

★★★★★ FAUST, TAMESTIT, EBS, GARDINER, ST-MARTIN-IN-THE-FIELDS Two great communicative soloists up the joy factor of an already dazzling evening

Two great communicative soloists up the joy factor of an already dazzling evening

Haydn and Mozart symphonies from John Eliot Gardiner and his English Baroque Soloists are bound, at the very least, to be high, lucid and bright. Last night the X-factor was there too, and trebled in a surely unsurpassable account of Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante for violin, viola and orchestra by two of the world’s most communicative soloists, Isabelle Faust and Antoine Tamestit.

Die Zauberflöte, Royal Opera review - classic show but disappointing conductor

★★★ DIE ZAUBERFLÖTE, ROYAL OPERA Sublety and depth from Anna Prohaska and Gyula Orendt

Anna Prohaska and Gyula Orendt give performances of great subtlety and depth

“The great thing about this production,” Colin Davis observed in 2003, during rehearsals for its very first run, “is that the director [David McVicar] hasn’t attempted to shock anybody. He has tried to tell the story of The Magic Flute. And thank God for that.”

Dunedin Consort, Butt, Lammermuir Festival review - majestic Mozart at St Mary’s Haddington

★★★★ DUNEDIN CONSORT, BUTT, LAMMERMUIR Majestic Mozart at St Mary’s Haddington

Star sopranos steal the show in a C Minor Mass of magisterial power

The Dunedin Consort are most readily associated with the music of the Baroque, but this concert showed that they’re every bit as good at playing the music of the next generation. At times, in fact, I was taken aback by the magisterial scale of the orchestral sound as they played Mozart’s great C Minor Mass.