As their divergent new recordings attest, the winners of this year's Avery Fisher Prize are gifted violinists with strong ideas behind the bows.

Daniel Barenboim
At Carnegie Hall.
I Cavalieri di Ekebú
Opera by Riccardo Zandonai, presented by Teatro Grattacielo at Alice Tully Hall; conducted by Robert Ashens, with the Oratorio Society of New York.

The Flying Dutchman
The Mikado

A Hitchcockian radio classic makes for a delicious, if soapy, opera.

At this year's Focus! Festival, the Juilliard School spotlights new music from Scandinavia -- and the results, not surprisingly, are rather cool.

Dmitry Shostakovich
A Midsummer Night's Dream

With no great period-instrument ensemble to call their own, Baroque-hearted New Yorkers must depend on the kindness of strangers.

For La Gran Scena -- the world's smartest, not to mention longest-running, opera troupe in drag -- the commedia is never finita.

Singing Britten in his Philharmonic debut, tenor Ian Bostridge shows he’s a Rimbaud doll; a concert dedicated to Psalms; the Met’s powerful Fidelio proves it’s a keeper.