Adriana Lecouvreur, Royal Opera

ADRIANA LECOUVREUR, ROYAL OPERA Engaging if little-known work shines in well-cast revival

Engaging if little-known work shines in well-cast revival

Adriana Lecouvreur deserves to be better known. The opera has a toe-hold in the repertoire, with occasional appearances, usually as a showcase for the soprano in the title role. Its composer, Francesco Cilea, is known for little else, but the opera demonstrates an impressive melodic gift, an ear for orchestral colour, and a rare ability to pace music in step with a complex and extended narrative.

Summerfield, Jackson, Riches, Classical Opera, Page, Wigmore Hall

Three outstanding singers and an early Mozart revelation focus on 1767

Young Amadeus is growing up in real time with MOZART 250, Classical Opera's ambitious 26-year project following its hero's creative life from childhood to the grave. 2015's start, marking two and a half centuries since the boy wonder's first visit to London, and its sequel had little to show of its main man, but plenty of other, senior composers flourishing in the same years.

Igor Levit, Wigmore Hall

IGOR LEVIT, WIGMORE HALL Fiery, bold readings delivered with precision and focus

Fiery, bold readings delivered with precision and focus

Igor Levit began his recording career with Beethoven’s last three piano sonatas, and his deeply felt, impressively mature readings made his name. Now he is performing a full cycle at the Wigmore Hall, and his take on the earlier sonatas turns out to be very much in the same spirit. There is little sense of Classical reserve in Levit’s early Beethoven; instead everything is performed in an intensely expressive style. It’s impulsive and unpredictable, with huge contrasts of dynamic and tempo. Sometimes the results feel counterintuitive, but they are always compelling.

DiDonato, Il Pomo d'Oro, Emelyanchev, Barbican

The American mezzo reimagines the classical concert for the stadium generation

Most singers give recitals, and very nice they are too. But there are some – Bartoli, Florez, Netrebko, Terfel – who really put on a show. Mezzo Joyce DiDonato might just be the queen of this select band, and between the projections, smoke, sound effects, costume changes, lighting design and a solo dancer, her latest project throws down the gauntlet to any singer who thinks it’s enough just to learn the music and turn up in a clean frock.

DVD/Blu-ray: Napoléon

DVD/BLU-RAY: NAPOLEON Abel Gance's sprawling fragment of a mighty life is flawed but breathtaking

Abel Gance's sprawling fragment of a mighty life is flawed but breathtaking

Like Proust's In Search of Lost Time, Abel Gance's Napoléon is the monument of a genius badly in need of self-editing. In both instances, everything testifies to the singular vision of the artist - in Gance's case, his innovations in the field of film technology, from hand-held-camera mayhem to three-screen novelty in the final sequence which ends up in tricolour (earlier, tints and tones in greens, purples and reds, inter alia, articulate the underlying moods of certain scenes).

CBSO, Gražinytė-Tyla, Symphony Hall Birmingham

CBSO, GRAŽINYTĖ-TYLA, SYMPHONY HALL BIRMINGHAM Head and heart triumph together in Mahler, Haydn and a UK premiere

Head and heart triumph together in Mahler, Haydn and a UK premiere

Is there anything on a concert programme more guaranteed to make the heart lift – or to prove that a conductor has their musical priorities straight – than a Haydn symphony? If you're tired of Haydn, you're tired of life: there’s no music more joyous, more inventive or more resistant to vanity. Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla chose his Symphony No 6 of 1761, called Le Matin for its opening sunrise and the freshness of its ideas, and it was a delight.

Oreste, Royal Opera, Wilton's Music Hall

ORESTE, ROYAL OPERA, WILTON'S MUSIC HALL Strong singing, if not fine-tuned to Handel, and playing at odds with hollow production

Strong singing, if not fine-tuned to Handel, and playing at odds with hollow production

Human sacrifice and long-term reconciliation are serious matters for music-drama. Not that you'd know it from Handel's pasticcio or confectionary of previous operatic hits, nor from Gerard Jones's one-note production. For strip-cartoon violence Tarantino-style you need panache, and there’s little of that here. Interesting, too, that Handel gets hardly a look-in throughout the interview Jones the Younger gives in the programme. More important, does he serve the fledgling dramatic abilities of fellow trainees on the Royal Opera's Jette Parker Young Artists Programme?

Mozart's Last Symphonies, SCO, Ticciati, Usher Hall, Edinburgh

MOZART'S LAST SYMPHONIES, SCO, TICCIATI, USHER HALL, EDINBURGH A mighty trilogy transfigured

A mighty trilogy transfigured

His transformational Brahms series with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra may have been truncated by slipped disc troubles - he was much missed at Glyndebourne too - but Robin Ticciati is back with renewed energy and purpose. To judge from the brilliant but focused party they seemed to be having with Mozart's "Jupiter" Symphony last night, the players are as overjoyed as he is.

The Sleeping Beauty, Australian Ballet, cinema broadcast

A sparky, faithful rendition of a classic

Australian Ballet's cinema broadcast on Tuesday night appears to have been a little under-publicised at least in my local multiplex, which was deafeningly empty with just five spectators.

Don Giovanni, English National Opera

DON GIOVANNI, ENGLISH NATIONAL OPERA Offbeat drama and meaningful singing in Mozart's trickiest masterpiece

Offbeat drama and meaningful singing in Mozart's trickiest masterpiece

Pace-perfect musical articulation and meaningful surprises in the direction: both were to be expected after the conductor-generated sludge and the production overkill of the new Royal Opera Così fan tutte. Mark Wigglesworth has form in Mozart at ENO, with the best of Cosìs way back and a bewitching revival of The Magic Flute this year. Last night he and the ENO Orchestra put no foot wrong. Richard Jones, his dream first-time collaborator, offered the expected twists and symmetries though perhaps not all the connections in between.