WEDNESDAY 28TH APRIL 2010 LONDON PHILHARMONIC/ JUROWSKI Royal Festival Hall Prokofiev and Myaskovsky – firm friends, musical polar opposites. Once again Vladimir Jurowski demonstrates the essence of creative programming bringing us two highly contrasted but musically well-complemented…

TUESDAY 27TH APRIL 2010 VERDI “AIDA” Royal Opera House No candy coloured chiffon, no pyramids, and definitely no turquoise elephants. Zandra Rhodes this was not. And the Covent Garden fashionistas were not happy. But last time I…

SATURDAY 24TH APRIL 2010 HENZE “ELEGY FOR YOUNG LOVERS” English National Opera at the Young Vic At an inn in the Austrian Alps Hilda Mack waits for her husband. 40 years ago he went climbing without, it…

MONDAY 12TH APRIL 2010 RUFUS WAINWRIGHT “PRIMA DONNA” Sadler’s Wells Rufus Wainwright is the past master of “operatic pop”. He writes wonderful and original songs – witty, ironic, insidiously memorable. He might one day write a similarly…

SATURDAY 10TH APRIL 2010 LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA/ NEZET-SEGUIN Royal Festival Hall Fireworks from Handel and Stravinsky but most of all from Yannick Nezet-Seguin in a performance of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony that redefined its rhythmic exuberance in ways…

THURSDAY 11TH MARCH 2010 LONDON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA/ ADAMS Barbican Hall The intimations of both Ravel and Stravinsky in Colin Matthews’ opulent orchestrations of Debussy’s gusty Preludes “The Wind in the Plain” and “What the West Wind Saw”…

TUESDAY 2ND MARCH 2010 VIENNA PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA/ MAAZEL ** Barbican Hall It’s interesting, not to say alarming, how variable the great Vienna Philharmonic can be. Give them a Brahms Hungarian Dance – as Lorin Maazel did here…

TUESDAY 30TH MARCH 2010 PHILHARMONIA ORCHESTRA/ MUTI Royal Festival Hall You always know when Riccardi Muti is in town: the Philharmonia Orchestra is celebrating another birthday. It’s now of pensionable age – 65 – and in fine…

SATURDAY 20TH FEBRUARY 2010 LONDON PHILHARMONIC/ JUROWSKI **** Royal Festival Hall Fateful prophecies and exultant perorations – the enduring spirits of Leos Janacek and Josef Suk ascend from the valley of the shadow of death and another…