The Critics

Rolling back into town

The world’s greatest band return to Liverpool — do they still have it?

Joyous adventures in the absurd

A new performance of a Janacek opera takes one to the moon and back

Getting wrecked

Dame Ethel Smyth’s opera dated quickly, but it hardly hurts to have another look at it

Class viewing

The contrast between the lives of the boxers in “Fight School” and those portrayed in “Anatomy of A Scandal” could not be sharper

Clearly raising the tone

What makes the perfect radio voice?

Tanks a lot

“War is the original human state,” Russian directors seem to say

The eye of the storm

Rachel Podger and Brecon Baroque, Vivaldi, The Four Seasons

The original, best and shortest English opera

John Blow, Venus and Adonis; Henry Purcell, Dido and Aeneas (HGO)

Some very healthy early music canaries

Helen Charlston & Toby Carr; Siglo de Oro (LFBM, St John’s, Smith Sq)

Transports de joie

En route back to childhood at the Wallace Collection