While Germany’s politics lurched to the right, its visiting orchestras gave masterclasses in artistic freedom, with star soloists Augustin Hadelich, Martha Argerich and Isabelle Faust

Garsington Opera’s staging of Gerald Barry’s raucous ‘opera of delirium’ draws out a genius mix of playfulness, exaggeration and musical ingenuity

As the Royal Opera considers the future of opera in the AI age, an old favourite returns in exuberant form. Plus, Longborough Festival Opera’s Orlando

SeokJong Baek and Aigul Akhmetshina excel in Richard Jones’s sharp take on the ancient battle between faith and greed. Plus, a harrowing, humane Peter Grimes at the Royal Opera

Cardinals, former world leaders, and classical music’s best and brightest gathered in the Vatican to hear the first concert premiere ever held beneath Michelangelo’s magnificent frescoes

Guildhall School of Music & Drama present a skilful production of the anti-war work Owen Wingrave, commissioned for TV 60 years ago by David Attenborough

Brecht and Weill’s revoltingly in-your-face critique of capitalism is redeemed by ENO’s on-the-money production. Plus, the Hokusai-inspired opera The Great Wave

Phelim McDermott’s end-of-pier staging of Mozart’s prickly comic opera is revived with bunny girls, sword-eaters and a first-class cast. Plus, Liverpool’s secret weapon and Colin Matthews at 80

The actor serves it straight with a simple but sophisticated staging of Eugene Onegin for the Paris Opéra

An outstanding critical voice, his deep knowledge and love of music was evident in everything he wrote

Fiona Maddocks on 2025’s best premieres and most popular composers

From Tchaikovsky to Fats Waller, there are seasonal songs to suit every mood

New works by or about women powered this year’s Oxford Song festival, tackling everything from Ireland’s Magdalene laundries to the heroines of Iranian myth

Verdi’s Le Trouvère, transported to the Spanish civil war, is just one of the powerfully sung surprises at the Irish waterfront party

Albert Herring is a subversive portrait of stuffy postwar England

The myth that culture has not been for the masses is debunked in a new book

The virtuosic string ensemble explored these ambitious themes through ideas of memory

The young composer’s inventive new work at Peckham’s Bold Tendencies is unlike anything but itself. Plus, an epic Verdi boasts a starry cast

Music and politics meet in a stripped-back Puccini in Jakub Hrůsä’s ROH debut. Plus, Antonio Pappano launches his LSO season with a big-scale double bill

A capacity Albert Hall crowd walked, biked and bus-battled their way through tube strike London to see the august Vienna Philharmonic perform the compose...

Cue poisoned mushrooms and fierce satire as the BBC Phil and ENO join forces in Shostakovich’s denounced opera

Simon Rattle conducts the Swiss festival’s dazzling orchestra in his debut appearance

Jessica Duchen, author of Myra Hess – National Treasure, joins forces with the award-winning pianist Lara Melda to tell the inspiring story of Myra Hess and her wartime National Gallery Concerts in wo...

At the hour of Trump and Putin’s Alaska summit, Shostakovich’s Babi Yar proved a poignant choice at the Proms. Plus, Studio Ghibli’s composer Joe Hisaish...

A divisive staging of Janáček’s domestic opera rounds off Glyndebourne festival by trapping the audience in the mind of its unhappy heroine

A trio of world premieres saw this season begin in bravura style

Plus: Strauss’s ever-shocking masterpiece Salome brings the London Symphony Orchestra season at the Barbican to a close

The composer on transcending reality, and his working-class background, through classical music

​A mystic who turned visions into beautiful chants, Hildegard von Bingen has inspired everyone from Grimes to David Lynch. Musicians including Julia Holter explain the hold she has on them

Titles banned, data deleted, the nation’s librarians sacked without explanation – Donald Trump’s war on books is a threat to democracy across the world, ...