Giustino review – sublime, and ridiculous, Handel rarity returns to Covent Garden
Joe Hill-Gibbins’ scaled-down staging is sensitive, and the music beautifully played and sung, but this is an uneven work dramatically
Arvo Pärt at 90 review – impassioned and authoritative performances from Estonia’s finest
Tõnu Kaljuste conducted the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra and the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir in a concert celebrating the composer’s haunting and hypnotic music
Susanna review – Opera North’s arresting take on Handel’s proto-#MeToo tale
Dance, sign language, outstanding singing and precise orchestral playing all illuminate this powerful tale of gendered violence and abuses of power
Oum – A Son’s Quest for His Mother review – hybrid forces bring Bushra El-Turk’s haunting score to vivid life
A tour-de-force by actor Nadia Amin centres this tale of the inherited trauma of exile while a trio of singers virtuosically blend Middle Eastern and European operatic idioms
Christian Tetzlaff: Elgar and Adès Violin Concertos album review – refreshing and exhilarating
The violinist’s performance of these two concertos is energetic but also thoughtful, with the BBC Phil sounding electric
The Elixir of Love review – an intoxicating brush with a snake oil salesman
English Touring Opera’s witty production sets this Donizetti comedy at the seaside, complete with donkey rides, fish and chips and a persuasive conman
London Philharmonic Orchestra/ Gardner review – muscular Emperor sets up edge-of-the-seat finale
The LPO season opener saw Yefim Bronfman on keen form in Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No 5, before the orchestra delivered a white-hot, bittersweet Tchaikovsky Fifth
Cinderella review – fun-forward fairytale kicks off ENO makeover
Julia Burbach’s energetic staging of Rossini sets the tone for English National Opera’s new split-site era, bringing lashings of chorus comedy and a pacy conductor’s debut by Yi-Chen Lin
Philharmonia/ Rouvali/ Ólafsson review – orchestra opens 80th celebrations with sparkle and style
Víkingur Ólafsson’s Beethoven was clear, contemplative and witty, in a concert that also featured Olivier Latry at the mighty RFH organ and a UK premiere from Gabriela Ortiz
Baltimore SO/Alsop: Clyne, Abstractions album review – Clyne writes accessible and attractive music
Marin Alsop’s fine recording offers a chronology of Anna Clyne’s orchestral writing
WDR SO Cologne Chamber Players: The Romantic Room, Chamber Works by Spohr album review – plenty to discover
The early 19th century German composer wrote a prodigious amount of music, little of it known today. This rewarding collection features his larger-scale chamber works
Chappell Roan review – pop’s patient princess triumphantly takes the throne in New York
The star claims she wasn’t ‘feeling 100’ for her Queens stadium show but it was hard to see any fatigue as she carried the crowd through her dazzling setlist
The Sicilian Vespers review – plot and theatrical panache collide in Verdi’s Parisian reinvention
Stefan Herheim’s production of this fascinating work battles with hollowness and ambiguities despite an impressive debut from Speranza Scappucci as principal guest conductor
Garland review – bells, whistles and a horse as Leith’s processional bemuses and beguiles
The narrative was lost but Oliver Leith’s large-scale work – world premiered here – was full of memorable moments
Schoenberg: Violin Concerto, Verklärte Nacht, Die Jakobsleiter album review – a compelling and impressive collection
Five works by the modernist composer, all taken from concerts given by Kirill Petrenko and the Berlin Philharmonic, include a magnificent performance of the oratorio fragment Die Jakobsleiter