At Vienna’s Volksoper from 9 December, the Wiener Staatsballet performs a new Roméo et Juliette ballet but not Prokofiev’s, the Berlioz’s masterpiece instead with choreography by Davide Bombana.

Let’s go! Mezzo Cecilia Bartoli & cellist Sol Gabetta are on tour in Europe thanks to their new album Dolce duello in Baden-Baden (23 November) and among other dates in Amsterdam (27 November), Brussels (29 November), London (1 December), Paris (4 December), Munich (10 December), Vienna (12 December) and Berlin (17 December).

It’s official, Riccardo Muti returns to conduct a staged opera, it will be Mozart’s Così fan tutte at the Vienna State Opera… in 2020!

At London’s Southbank Centre, conducting his Philharmonia Orchestra Esa-Pekka Salonen returns to perform Mahler, Symphony 9.

The new 2018 season of the Teatro dell’Opera officially opens on 12 December with a French masterpiece, Berlioz’s La damnation de Faust is conducted by Daniele Gatti and directed by Damiano Michieletto.

The all-Beethoven Sonatas cycle by rare and very talented pianist Igor Levit continues at Brussels’ Palais des Beaux-Arts on 5 December.

Julia Lezhneva is the artist-in-residence of the Lucerne Festival, Easter edition held from 17 to 25 March 2018.

The Oper Leipzig presents a new production of Dvořák’s masterpiece Rusalka staged by Michiel Dijkema and conducted by Christoph Gedschold from 3 December with the fantastic Gewandhausorchester.

Unfortunatly Dmitri Hvorostovsky cancels all the performances scheduled at the Wiener Staatsoper, in Verdi’s Otello Dalibor Jenis replaces in March and Paolo Rumetz as Rigoletto in May.

Superb pianist Khatia Buniatishvili performs with her sister Gvantsa on 30 November at Montpellier’s Opéra Comédie an explosive piano recital with works by Rachmaninov, Milhaud, Gershwin and Ravel.