Pelléas et Mélisande review – luminous semi-staging but Debussy’s elusive opera keeps its secrets

This year’s Aldeburgh festival opened with a stripped-back concert staging by Rory Kinnear with Ryan Wigglesworth conducting the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra

Sally Beamish: House of Wonder album review – a musical shapeshifter celebrates 70 years

The British composer’s celebratory album is a family affair

Katia and Marielle Labèque: 55 album review – a handsome tribute to the sisters’ musical curiosity and brilliance

The pianist sisters’ celebration of their 55 years of recording is a thoughtfully curated compilation that reveals the extent of their omnivorous musical appetites

The Mahler Experiment review – physical drama comes at a musical cost in choreographed symphony

Tom Morris’s staged take on Mahler’s first symphony is valiantly performed by Stephanie Childress and Sinfonia Smith Square, but the result feels more like R&D than a finished product

Danish String Quartet review – captivating performance from a world-class group

The quartet communicated intimately and naturally in a programme of music by Shostakovich, Ravel and Stravinsky

Manchester Camerata review – mental torments build up to a royal meltdown

A clever programme brought a mounting sense of lost grip, from Errollyn Wallen voicing the shame of Hamlet’s Ophelia, to Schumann’s fraught love declaration, and Peter Maxwell Davies’s Eight Songs for a Mad King

The Marriage of Figaro review – Danielle de Niese’s deft direction weds finery with fun

A touring show was quite a challenge for the opera star’s first directorial gig, but dynamic singing, charismatic orchestral play and clever stage jokes pull it off brilliantly

St Vincent review – majestic orchestral transformations of jagged art-pop

The mercurial artist reworked her catalog with technical mastery – and playful dance moves – accompanied by the Boston Pops orchestra

BBCNOW/Bancroft review – conductor takes final bow in imaginative programme of vivid colours and emotions

Works about infatuation and deep feeling were fitting choices with which the Ryan Bancroft bid a celebratory farewell to the BBC National Orchestra of Wales

Krishna review – the mystery of John Tavener’s ‘mystic pantomime’ is why it has been staged

Singers and orchestra toiled admirably with this posthumous world premiere about the Hindu god, complete with inflatable deadly serpent. But the work feels straight from the 19th-century Orientalism playbook

Hourglass album review – Simone Dinnerstein gives Glass room to breathe

With a refreshingly organic approach, the US pianist and her string ensemble revitalise the modern minimalist master’s score for The Hours and his Tirol Concerto

Beethoven: The Violin Sonatas Vol 1 album review – fresh-as-a-daisy performances from a duo with a gift for storytelling

Violinist Alina Ibragimova and pianist Cédric Tiberghien, on period instruments, offer zest-filled and elegant readings of four Beethoven sonatas

Vespers review – haunting clash of cultures conjures Vivaldi’s Venice

This resourceful semi-staging blended choral collective Idrîsî Ensemble’s ancient chants with Iestyn Davies and Figure’s Vivaldi.

Lise Davidsen and James Baillieu review – superstar soprano unleashes her inner Valkyrie

The Norwegian singer’s remarkable ability to inhabit a character, her warmth on stage and the control and tenderness she brought to the more intimate songs made this a very special recital

Orlando review – a confident romp through Handel’s flimsily plotted opera

Sinéad O’Neill’s production is persuasive and Beth Taylor’s performace as Orlando is extraordinary in this tale of unrequited love, madness and magic