The London Coliseum’s Nutcracker

IT’s like a cultural equivalent of comfort eating: Christmas comes around again, and the assumption is that audiences only want to see and hear the feelgood things they’ve seen and heard at Christmas countless times before – which means that for the next week, music venues are engulfed by ballet companies dancing Nutcracker.

It’s kind of everywhere, and usually in variants on the traditional 19th-century choreography by Petipa. You’ll find it at the London Coliseum, running to Jan 7, courtesy of English National Ballet (ballet.org.uk); at Covent Garden, to Jan 14, from the Royal Ballet (roh.org.uk); at the Albert Hall, Dec 28-31, from Birmingham Royal Ballet (brb.org.uk); and in a form especially designed for children at Sadlers Wells’ Studio Theatre, Dec 24-31, from the Let’s All Dance company (sadlerswells.com). Take your pick.

But if you want something slightly different I’d recommend another Tchaikovsky ballet, his Sleeping Beauty, playing in Matthew Bourne’s re-imagined version on the main Sadler’s Wells stage until Jan 15. Forget Petipa: this is a sassy, glitzy show that weaves an element of glam-rock gothic horror into the familiar narrative. It’s not for purists, and the music isn’t live: you get a pre-recorded orchestra that belts the score out at relentless volume. But the spectacle is stunning, the pace urgently alive, and the whole thing has a West End wow-factor – with a tendency to kitsch that you forgive because the execution is so damn good. Which is how you’ll feel leaving the theatre when the show is over. sadlerswells.com

• My chief Christmas-period concert recommendation has to be the predictably classy Messiah playing St John’s Smith Square on Dec 23, with the all-professional forces of Polyphony with the Age of Enlightenment Orchestra (sjss.org.uk). But there’s also a surprising amount happening at Wigmore Hall, which battles on over Christmas in a way that many concert venues don’t. Highlights include the Italian period choir and orchestra Il Pomo d’Oro (the name means Golden Apple rather than Tomato Sauce) in seasonal music for Vespers by Monteverdi and others on Dec 23; the doyen of Australian pianists Piers Lane playing Grieg and Liszt on Dec 28; and the captivating Irish tenor Robin Tritschler singing German lied on Dec 29. wigmore-hall.org.uk

• Finally, for those who’d rather stay home over Christmas, preferably beside a roaring fire with chestnuts roasting, there’s a group of Italian opera houses you should know about who obligingly put their current shows online for free viewing at OperaStreaming.com. Right now you can watch a new production of Verdi’s Rigoletto from Piacenza, directed by the veteran singer Leo Nucci. From Dec 23 there’s a Verdi gala starring Placido Domingo – who may not be in the best voice any more, and with a battered reputation for bad offstage behaviour, but is still an artist of substance. And on Dec 30 there’s a livestream from Ferrara of Johann Strauss’s Die Fledermaus. Perfect new year’s repertoire. And coming without charge, what’s not to like?