The Threepenny Opera is at the Cockpit Theatre

ON paper, in advance, it didn’t look so wonderful. But contrary to expectations, the 2023 Proms Season turned out to deliver rabbits from hats (musically speaking) time and time again: some of them spectacular, including the Last Night which was a multi-media triumph. So I can only say I’m sad the Proms are over for another year – and thank you BBC for making them happen. There are occasions when you have to go down on your knees with gratitude for what the Beeb, despite its lacklustre management, provides. And the Proms are a shining example. May they never be allowed to fade.

• Meanwhile, it’s back to business with a vengeance at all the other London concert venues. Legendary Russian/Viennese pianist Elisabeth Leonskaja is at Wigmore Hall, Sept 17, playing all three of the Brahms piano sonatas (wigmore-hall.org.uk). The venerable Bavarian State Orchestra – which claims to have been around in one form or another for 500 years – celebrates its extreme longevity with two Barbican concerts, Sept 18 & 19, under Vladimir Jurowsky. Programmes feature Brahms, Strauss, Schumann, and Mahler’s 4th Symphony (barbican.org.uk). And for big-noise thrill-seekers, there’s a Verdi Requiem at the Royal Festival Hall, Sept 21, from the Philharmonia Orchestra, with powerhouse mezzo Karen Cargill among the soloists (southbankcentre.co.uk).

• Operatically, two major revivals open this week. At English National Opera its high-impact David Alden staging of Britten’s Peter Grimes (which in my book ranks among the greatest of all operas) returns Sept 21-Oct 11, with a not so compelling cast but conducted by Martyn Brabbins and still very much worth seeing (eno.org). While Covent Garden dusts down its Christof Loy production of Verdi’s Forza del destino, conducted by Mark Elder, Sept 19-Oct 9. Feebly, the Royal Opera is advertising the show as “parental guidance” needed. Take no notice and go (roh.org.uk).

• On a more modest scale, the Cockpit Theatre, Marylebone, takes in a new touring Threepenny Opera: the dark, acerbic “play with music” surgically extracted by Kurt Weill and Bertold Brecht from the heart of the Weimar Republic in 1920s Germany. Think Lotte Lenya, Mack the Knife and growing menace. Full of deathless tunes, and with a teeming, multi-tasking cast of singers/actors/instrumentalists, it runs Sept 21-Oct 8 (thecockpit.org.uk).

• More locally, the Islington Proms run Sept 15-30 at St James’s Prebend Street, N1, starting with a searching vocal programme from the Beaufort Singers (Sept 15) and including a piano recital by the festival’s director Yoon Chung (Sept 22) before rounding off with the Haydn Chamber Orchestra in Samuel Barber’s evocative Knoxville: Summer of 1915 (Sept 30) (full programme details at islingtonproms.com).

• At St John’s Smith Square a company called Baroque Encounter give a costumed semi-staging of Handel’s opera Tolomeo, sung in English translation, Sept 16 (sjss.org.uk).

• And there’s a notable concert at Hampstead Parish Church, Sept 16, when rising tenor Ruairi Bowen, soprano Rebecca Hardwick and the ever-versatile pianist William Vann perform English song cycles by Finzi, Howells and Tippett. Just my sort of repertoire – and maybe yours too? (fom.org.uk)