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The Guardian - Back to homeThe Guardian

Classical music & opera

  • Ian Bostridge in Winterreise at Bath’s Ustinov studio.

    Review
    Winterreise – agony and ecstasy as Bostridge and Drake bring Schubert’s song cycle to dramatic life

  • Backstage during dress rehearsals

    The Guardian picture essay
    Love, laughs and lavish designs: The Merry Widow at Glyndebourne

    We visit rehearsals as an extravagant new staging of Lehár’s 1905 operetta comes to Glyndebourne, brought to life by Cal McCrystal and John Wilson with Danielle de Niese in the title role
  • Three adults confer in a cabin while a woman in gold cloak lurks outside

    Review
    Blond Eckbert – Judith Weir’s bare-bones opera kicks off Aldeburgh festival

    Despite excellent performances from the singers and chamber ensemble, this stripped-back version of the folkloric opera failed to convey the horror of its story
  • ‘She was game for all of it’ … Eva-Maria Westbroek wearing prosthetic breasts in Anna Nicole.

    Anguished arias and Anna Nicole Smith
    Antonio Pappano’s heart-stopping Royal Opera highs

  • Yuja Wang at the Festival Hall, London.

    Review
    Yuja Wang – from delicate finesse to fierce intensity

  • Brad Kella plays at Liverpool Lime Street in The Piano.

    The Piano’s unlikely new virtuoso star
    Police stop me because I look like a stereotypical lad

  • ‘Our first time’ … Gemma New will conduct the world premiere of City of Floating Sounds.

    In the key of 5G
    The ‘dimensionalist’ who wrote a symphony for 1,000 phones

Live reviews

  • Danielle de Niese (Hanna Glawari) and Germán Olvera (Count Danilo Danilovitsch), centre, in The Merry Widow by Franz Lehár at Glyndebourne.

    The Merry Widow review – De Niese and Olvera are compelling, but camp fun stifles subtlety

  • THE GRANGE FESTIVAL - Incoronazione di Poppeia, 2024

    L’Incoronazione di Poppea review – sexting, dope and toxic masculinity in Monteverdi update

  • Katie Trethewey, centre, and Ludovic Morlot at Symphony Hall, Birmingham.

    CBSO/Morlot review – A beautiful lament for corrupted nature

  • Paul Grant as Figaro and Elgan Llŷr Thomas as Count Almaviva in The Barber of Seville.

    The Barber of Seville review – Rossini’s opera gets a British Victoriana makeover

Loads more stories and moves focus to first new story.

Album reviews

  • Worth the wait … Janine Jansen playing with the Oslo Philharmonic, conducted by Klaus Mäkelä.

    Sibelius and Prokofiev Violin Concertos album review – freewheeling rapport never sounds forced

  • VOICES8 Foundation - press handout image - TSOL 01

    To Sing of Love album review – sweetly glowing, beautifully coloured choral music

  • Takács Quartet.

    Schubert: String Quartets in G, D887 and B Flat, D112 album review – Takács take their time, this time

  • Claire Booth and Christopher Glynn.

    Schoenberg: Expressionist Music album review – thoughtful and illuminating collection

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People

  • Fanny: The Other Mendelssohn

    ‘Music for you must only be an ornament’
    How Fanny Mendelssohn’s voice was stifled, then saved

  • Martyn Brabbins rehearsing with English National Opera Orchestra at the Henry Wood Hall in London.

    News
    ENO’s music director resigns over proposed cuts to musical staff positions

  • Joana Mallwitz

    Conducting
    Joana Mallwitz is the first woman to lead a Berlin orchestra. And, no, she hasn’t seen Tár

  • Christian Thielemann

    News
    Christian Thielemann picks up baton as director of Berlin State Opera from old rival

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You may have missed

  • Trumpet soloist Alison Balsom performed with the L.A. Philharmonic, conducted by Bramwell Tovey, on his "Songs of the Paradise Saloon," at Walt Disney Concert Hall, Nov. 10, 2013. (Photo by Jay L. Clendenin/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

    Alison Balsom
    ‘This is the most important piece written for the trumpet in 200 years’

  • WNO rehearsals for Death in Venice

    ‘We’re all agog’:
    Behind the scenes at Welsh National Opera’s Death in Venice – a photo essay

  • Guy Johnston practising The Protecting Veil at the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of Divine Wisdom, February 2024

    ‘He had a mystical aura’
    Cellist Guy Johnston on John Tavener’s masterpiece The Protecting Veil

  • Violinist Elena Urioste and pianist Tom Poster. 2023

    Soaring, searching and silent for too long
    The remarkable life – and music – of composer Mel Bonis

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Guides

  • 1216 Portrait of Ethel Smyth<br>PBBHMT 1216 Portrait of Ethel Smyth

    Know the score
    Without Ethel Smyth and classical music's forgotten women, we only tell half the story

    Leah Broad
  • From left: The Tempest, The Minotaur, L’amour de loin, Hamlet

    The best classical music works of the 21st century

  • A guide to contemporary classical music

  • Fireworks light the sky above the Brandenburg Gate shortly after midnight in Berlin, Friday, Jan. 1, 2016. Hundred of thousands of people gathered for the New Year celebrations, welcoming the new year 2016 at the area around the Brandenburg Gate in the capital of Germany. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

    A musical tour of Europe
    Stephen Moss's guide to the music of Europe's great cities: Berlin

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