Classical

If a touch of titillation is what raises your average Festival fare above the ordinary, then Fergus Lineman has achieved that with his core classical music programme.

Traditionalists may bemoan the paucity of staged opera - two only, Komische Oper Berlin’s Eugene Onegin and the European premiere of Missy Mazzoli’s Breaking the Waves. But look what the Usher Hall series has in concert opera: the glorious conclusion to the four-year Wagner Ring Cycle, Götterdämmerung, with such vocal elites as Christine Goerke and Karen Cargill, and Puccini’s Manon Lescaut in the explosive hands of Donald Runnicles and Deutsche Oper.

The mighty Mahler 2 opens the orchestral series, but what should we expect of this symphonic colossus from the Los Angeles Philharmonic under glitzy maestro Gustavo Dudamel? He and the LA players are in residence, so there is plenty of opportunity to test the hype.

Bernstein’s West Side Story might seem an odd piece of programming, especially unstaged, but this one has the famously erudite Sir John Eliot Gardiner in charge. What will the erstwhile doyen of Bach performance do with Bernstein?

Equally tantalising are a set of concerts celebrating Sir James Macmillan at 60, including his new Fifth Symphony. The Shanghai Symphony Orchestra give a Chinese twist to Shostakovich 5, Simon Rattle is back with the LSO, and in the Queen’s Hall chamber series look out for new SCO chief conductor Maxim Emelyanychev on piano with his orchestra principals. More than just routine.