St Peter ad Vincula [Michael Coppins_CC BY-SA 4.0]

IT goes without saying that Verdi wrote some of the greatest operas in the repertoire. But one or two of them have plots so crazily resistant to belief you have to close your mind to their absurdities and focus on the music – as is usually the case with Il Trovatore, playing at Covent Garden July 8-19.

But if you caught this production last time round, you’ll know that the director Adele Thomas takes defensive action against mental shut-down and thrusts the silliness of it all in your face – crowding the stage with Maurice Sendak monsters, Lords of Misrule and other comic-horror creatures that you’d never expect from reading the libretto, although they certainly cheer it up. And as a distraction from an otherwise gruesome storyline (about people being burned at the stake and babies thrown into the flames by accident), I did rather enjoy it.
Needless to add, the score is fabulous; and this time round it’s in the hands of Carlo Rizzi whose Verdian credentials are distinguished. So expect good things. rbo.org.uk

• I’m not sure what to expect of the semi-staged Peter Grimes that British Youth Opera give at Cadogan Hall, July 6: Britten’s mighty stagework is a big ask for emerging talent. But the key roles are sung by seasoned voices, and I daresay the younger ones will throw themselves into it. Cadoganhall.com

• Famously, Rossini gave up writing operas 30 years before his death, devoting a long retirement to easy living and what he called the “sins of old age”. But one of those sins was his Petite Messe Solennelle, scheduled for a no doubt blameless performance by the Hampstead Collective, July 7, at St John’s Church Row, NW3. thehampsteadcollective.com

• When singers give recitals, it’s usually with what’s called a “collaborative” pianist who, however accomplished, takes second place on the billing. But you do occasionally find two solo-status stars working together in equal partnership. And it happens at Wigmore Hall, July 6, when tenor Ian Bostridge teams up with pianist Steven Osborne for a programme of Schubert and Debussy. Should be special, if perhaps competitive. wigmore-hall.org.uk

• Knuckling down to life without its longstanding music director Ron Corp, who died a few weeks ago, Highgate Choral Society has its summer concert at All Hallows Gospel Oak, July 5, with a guest conductor and a programme of Bach and Handel, including Bach’s Magnificat. hcschoir.com

Meanwhile, the neighbouring Crouch End Festival Chorus decamps to SW London on the same day, July 5, for a Fauré Requiem at Holy Trinity, Sloane Square. Also on the bill, Janacek and Bernstein. cefc.org.uk
And for something in a fascinating space rarely accessible, the combined choirs of the Chapels Royal sing Palestrina and Messiaen, July 9, at St Peter ad Vincula: the church within the Tower of London where an impressive number of decapitated corpses were interred straight from the scaffold at Tower Green – including Thomas More in the crypt. It’s part of this year’s Spitalfields Festival, so details: spitalfieldsmusic.org.uk

• Finally, guitarist Declan Hickey has a recital in the Highgate Salon Music series, July 5, playing modern works including something by the late Chalk Farm composer Elisabeth Lutyens – to be introduced by her pupil Robert Saxton. salonmusic.co.uk