Soprano Carolyn Sampson performs at The Pheasantry on September 12. [Marco Borggreve]

WHEN the Last Night of the Proms comes round you know that summer’s over. And with all its usual flag-waving nonsense, the Last Night arrives Sept 9 – broadcast on both radio and TV, and given lustre by the magisterial Lise Davidsen: one of the stand-out sopranos of today, singing Wagner, Verdi and Mascagni in a voice designed to fill the Albert Hall (it’s big). For details, bbc.co.uk/proms

But as the Proms end, the 2023/4 concert season springs to life; and Wigmore Hall is up and running with a vengeance as two pianists of stature, Mitsuko Uchida and Jonathan Biss, take the unusual step of sharing a platform on Sept 8 and Sept 10 in a programme of Schubert duets. In between, braving the Last Night competition on Sept 9, the beyond-glamorous Lithuanian soprano Asmik Grigorian (seen earlier this year in Covent Garden’s Rusalka) sings a Tchaikovsky/Rachmaninov recital. wigmore-hall.org.uk

Meanwhile, over at the Barbican the London Symphony Orchestra launch their new season on Sept 14 with the multi-tasking singer/conductor Barbara Hannigan managing to do both at the same time in an odd programme of old favourites by Haydn and Strauss alongside modernist masterworks by Ligeti and Nono. barbican.org.uk

But the highlight of the week has to be start of a new Wagner Ring Cycle at the Royal Opera House, with Das Rheingold running Sept 11-29. Such mega-projects are how opera companies maintain their reputation, so a lot rides on this new cycle staged by lauded Australian director Barrie Kosky (responsible for the Carmelites that was the hit of this year’s Glyndebourne season). Antonio Pappano conducts. And two baritonal Christophers, Maltman and Purves, sing the two antagonists: the god Wotan and the dwarf Alberich (neither character much better than the other when it comes to decency: with Wagner you get rogues on all sides). roh.org.uk

Other things worth noticing this week include the latest in the Highgate Salon Music series: a programme of love songs through the ages (from Hildegard of Bingen through to a new piece called “cricket, sex and housework” that takes a clearly contemporary view of love), performed by the all-female ensemble Voice. It plays Sept 9 in Highgate School Chapel. salonmusic.co.uk

Another concert in a fascinating venue runs Sept 12 at Leighton House, the Holland Park pile built for Victorian artist Lord Leighton, complete with oriental-fantasy interiors. Violinist Madeleine Mitchell and friends play piano trios by Brahms and Ireland. lisapeacock.co.uk

And if you want to hear French song performed in a relaxed, cabaret environment, head to The Pheasantry in Chelsea’s Kings Road, Sept 12, where the always fabulous soprano Carolyn Sampson sings Fauré, Ravel and Poulenc with pianist William Vann. It’s the start of a new concert series in a venue (part of the Pizza Express chain) that doesn’t normally do classical; and how the interaction of serious listening with serious eating will work I can’t predict. But the intimacy will be interesting, and the artists are up for it. So worth exploring this series, which continues through the autumn with mezzo Kitty Whately and tenor James Gilchrist. pizzaexpresslive.com