Cosi fan tutte, English Touring Opera review - a blissful, uncomplicated delight

★★★★ COSI FAN TUTTE, ENGLISH TOURING OPERA A blissful, uncomplicated delight

A youthful romp of a production brings the sunshine back to Mozart's complicated comedy

Cosi fan tutte is, as the opera’s subtitle clearly tells us, “A School for Lovers”. But too often these days it can feel like a school for the audience. Joyless productions lecture us sternly on the battle of the sexes – on chauvinism, feminism, cynicism and sex – until we’re battered into fashionable discomfort. A happy ending? For Mozart’s most complicated comedy? Don’t be naïve.

Andsnes, Mahler Chamber Orchestra Soloists, Wigmore Hall review - conversations with Mozart

★★★★ ANDSNES, MAHLER CHAMBER ORCHESTRA SOLOISTS Conversations with Mozart

The Norwegian pianist and friends show us the Austrian master in sunlight and shadow

Leif Ove Andsnes’s long-term partnership with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra has already yielded rich fruit, and the Mozart quartets and trio he performed last night with members of the top-notch nomad band proved just as succulent. However, I would hardly have been alone in leaving the Wigmore Hall with my strongest impressions stirred by the single solo work that the versatile Norwegian master-pianist allowed himself.

Angelich, Aurora Orchestra, Collon, Kings Place review - warm embraces from good companions

★★★★ ANGELICH, AURORA ORCHESTRA, COLLON, KINGS PLACE Mozart concerto very much in earnest, sweetness and light in early Beethoven

Mozart concerto very much in earnest, sweetness and light in early Beethoven

"New Dawns" as a title smacked a bit of trying to shoehorn a fairly straightforward Aurora programme in to Kings Place's Nature Unwrapped series. Only Dobrinka Tabakova's short and sweet Dawn made the link, and that was old, not new (composed in 2007). Maybe the dawn intended in Mozart's C minor Piano Concerto, K491.

Garvey, Quatuor Zaïde, Classical Vauxhall review - vibrant chamber music for all

★★★★ GARVEY, QUATUOR ZAÏDE, CLASSICAL VAUXHALL Vibrant chamber music for all

Super-subtle Frenchwomen joined by live-wire pianist and festival doyen

Three concerts, three fascinating venues, seven world-class young(ish) players, an audience of all ages and a musical storytelling event for 200 schoolchildren: this is how to launch a festival with outwardly modest means.

Elisabeth Leonskaja, Wigmore Hall review - pure musical essence

★★★★★ ELISABETH LEONSKAJA, WIGMORE HALL Pure musical essence

A thousand things learned, and felt, in Mozart - and Schoenberg - from a master pianist

"What is it about Mozart?" asked Sviatoslav Richter in 1982. "Is there a pianist alive who really manages to play him well?...Haydn is infinitely less difficult to play (he's almost easy, in fact).

Clarke, Ränzlöv, The Mozartists, Page, Wigmore Hall - young Mozart among the giants

THE MOZARTISTS, PAGE, WIGMORE HALL Soprano Samantha Clarke shines in a 1770 celebration

1770 is this year's focus in 'Mozart 250,' showcasing two bright young singers

Assuming the world holds together that long, there will be something we can rely on annually all the way to 2041, the 250th anniversary of Mozart's death: among the celebrations each year, a Wigmore Hall concert like this one, placing Amadeus among the other composers of his time, great and small(er).

ECO, Zacharias, Fairfield Halls Croydon review - green-fingered Haydn

★★★★ ECO, ZACHARIAS, FAIRFIELD HALLS CROYDON Green-fingered Haydn

The lights are back on and burning cheerfully at south London’s new/old orchestral venue

Switch off for a phrase or two and it’s easy to miss the point in a Haydn symphony that makes each one of them odd and unique. In No. 74, played last night with understated class by the English Chamber Orchestra, that point occurs in the first movement, at the end of the second theme. All has gone just as you’d expect.

The Seraglio, English Touring Opera review – focused and light

★★★★ THE SERAGLIO, ETO Small-scale, traditional staging allows Mozart’s early comedy to shine

Small-scale, traditional staging allows Mozart’s early comedy to shine

No great innovations in this Seraglio – as ETO are styling Mozart’s early Singspiel (its full title in translation is The Abduction from the Seraglio – but a traditional staging that makes the most of all the work’s characters and quirks.

Bavouzet, Manchester Camerata, Takács-Nagy, Stoller Hall, Manchester, review - concertos as opera

Drama takes the stage in characterful views of Mozart

Manchester Camerata’s series of in-concert recordings featuring Mozart piano concertos with Jean-Efflam Bavouzet is well under way now, and this programme, like others before it, included a couple of his opera overtures too. Why so?

Don Giovanni, Royal Opera review - laid-back Lothario

★★★ DON GIOVANNI, ROYAL OPERA Laid-back Lothario

Revival cast variable, but Erwin Schrott delivers as the would-be seducer

Kasper Holten left a mixed bag of productions behind at Royal Opera when he left in 2017, but the best of them - though not all my colleagues on The Arts Desk have agreed - is this Don Giovanni, now back for its latest revival.