Aside from elves on shelves, Rudolph, Santa’s unhealthy diet and other 20 th century customs, Christmas has long had folklore and traditions associated with it that, while not found in the biblical ...

There’s nothing like an invigorating blast of trumpets and glory to start the final countdown to Christmas, and, performing true to form on Friday evening, the early-music ensemble Vox Luminis, under ...

English National Opera’s revival of HMS Pinafore promises buoyancy but quickly runs aground. Despite strong musical work and a committed cast, Cal McCrystal’s staging leans so heavily on laboured ...

Staged at Covent Garden for the first time since its 1735 premiere, this new Ariodante reframes Handel’s drama as a Chekhovian family implosion that yields mixed results. Relationships fray almost ...

The Gesualdo Six’s Advent calendar this year consists of five dates in Clervaux, Helsinki, London, Cambridge and Stroud; Wednesday evening saw them at Smith Square for the second of these. While many ...

The York Early Music Christmas Festival is now in full swing, with concert goers battling their way through the city’s usual traffic jams and lack of parking spaces (soon to be made worse by the ...

It is 75 years since the Chelsea Opera Group was founded by David Cairns, Colin Davis and Stephen Gray, all students at Oxford at the time. Its longevity is brought into focus by considering that it ...

Baroque specialist ensemble Pulcinella, under cellist and Director Ophélie Gaillard, are joined by countertenor Zoltán Daragó for a smorgasbord of short works by Handel, Geminiani, Vivaldi, Porpora ...

Charpentier, Howells and Thomas make for slightly odd bedfellows in a Christmas presentation from the innovative vocal (and instrumental) ensemble under director Robert Hollingsworth. The instruments ...