Julian Lloyd Webber [Simon Fowler]

I’M not sure if the advertised sex, nudity and violence is a trigger warning or enticement to buy tickets, but either way it’s what you’re promised in a new Regents Opera staging of Richard Strauss’s Salome that plays York Hall, Bethnal Green, Apr 10-23.

Regents is a fringe company that punches above its weight, and did so with a vengeance last year by taking on Wagner’s Ring Cycle – to critical acclaim. Salome isn’t such a monumental project but is still ambitious, Dance of the Seven Veils and all. And Strauss’s perfumed treatment of the Bible story about John the Baptist’s martyrdom always packs a punch: dripping with decadence in a text by Oscar Wilde that scandalised its first audiences and will clearly get a no-holds-barred (or maybe bared) response from this production. regentsopera.com

• By comparison, English Touring Opera’s marketing for the two works in its spring tour is positively prim – but then one of them is Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Gondoliers (not too much sex and violence there), which plays Hackney Empire, Apr 11. Higher-ranking in the league of operatic blood and guts is its running-mate, Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci, Apr 10, same venue. And if that sounds like a short evening – minus the Cavalleria Rusticana with which Pagliacci usually plays as a double-bill – there’s a make-weight based on Pagliacci ‘s themes (revenge and death) devised by the venture that gives singing opportunities to homeless people, Streetwise Opera. hackneyempire.co.uk

• The cellist Julian Lloyd Webber has been a barrier-breaking star for decades, and not just because he shares a surname with his brother Andrew (which has been a mixed blessing). He’s championed English composers – Delius, Elgar, Bliss especially – with eloquence and zeal. And he’s been an effective spokesman for music in general. All of which commend the 75th birthday gala he presents with an army of friends at Wigmore Hall, Apr 14.

Featuring him playing his cello for the first time in public since ill-health halted his career some years ago, the concert also marks the publication of a joyously indiscreet autobiography called Bows and Arrows that had me crying with laughter last week when I read through its stories of drunken conductors (who’d have thought there were so many?) and other mishaps on the high-wire of artistic excellence. None of them, needless to say, connected with the Wigmore, which is an unblemished model of propriety. wigmore-hall.org.uk

• That said, the Wigmore has an entertainment running Apr 11 called PIGSPIGSPIGS, which is a raucous music-theatre romp about country-folk in trouble. Described as “The Archers on Speed”, it’s done by an ensemble whose name alone, Bastard Assignments, carries promise. And the show features improvised instruments like cooking pots and “amplified twigs”. Can’t wait. wigmore-hall.org.uk

• More conventionally, the dazzling Bruce Liu plays Ravel’s G Major piano concerto at the Festival Hall, Apr 12 (southbankcentre.co.uk); Vilde Frang plays Korngold’s Violin Concerto – more korn than gold as critics once complained, though it’s much loved these days – at the Barbican, Apr 16 (barbican.org.uk); the envelope-pushing Aurora Orchestra play Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring by heart – no scores, no music stands, like birds freed from the cage of concert niceties – at the Festival Hall, Apr 16; and Belsize Community Choir give a free concert Apr 12, 7.30pm at St Peter’s Belsize Square. belsizecommunitychoir.org.uk