Benjamin Britten’s opera Gloriana was written in 1953 for celebrations around the Coronation of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, to whom the opera is dedicated. It had its first performance at the Royal Opera House on 8 June 1953, in the presence of The Queen then just 6 days into her reign. The centenary in 2013 of Britten’s birth prompted this new Royal Opera production, in which director Richard Jones uses the setting of a celebratory pageant in 1953 to explore the work’s alternating splendour and intimacy. This theatrical, inventive and colourful staging has at its core the symbolic reflections between the Tudor Elizabethan and the New Elizabethan ages that characterize the opera. The juxtaposition of the modern and the archaic in William Plomer’s libretto is wonderfully amplified in music that artfully fuses the sounds and manners of Tudor England – from lute songs to courtly dances – with Britten’s own distinctive style.

An opera in a prologue and two acts by John Adams, with a libretto by Alice Goodman, inspired by the 1985 hijacking of the cruise ship Achille Lauro. Conducted by Lawrence Renes, directed and designed by Luca Guadagnino. A new production by the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino.

Jonathan Miller set his well-known production of The Mikado, staged for the English National Opera, in a British seaside resort of the 1920s. The result, complete with a chorus of gentlemen of Japan as cartoon-like British peers, emphatically underscores the Englishness of the satire. The occasional non sequiturs, like a bunch of gentry dressed for Ascot and singing in Japanese, are loonily fun, and no more absurd than the fantasyland Japan that Gilbert and Sullivan invented. The time frame, though, seems little more than an excuse for a smart black-and-white production design.

Musician, actor, comedian and rock 'n' roll superstar Tim Minchin hosts a Proms first - the Comedy Prom. Tim is joined by Sue Perkins, Susan Bullock (soprano), Danny Driver (piano), Kit and the Widow, Beardyman, The Boy with Tape on his Face, Doc Brown, the Mongrels, the BBC Concert Orchestra, Andrew Litton (guest conductor) and Jules Buckley (music director).

These recordings are with two different orchestras (Mahler 1st with the Chicago Symphony and the 8th with the London Philharmonic). Tennstedt's live performances are much better than his studio versions of the same works, and it's wonderful to watch him coaxing what he wants from the players. Even though he conducts from the score rather than from memory, he always seems to be directly connected to the orchestra in an almost magical way. The sound is good in both performances, and there is a sense, on both occasions, of being present for something quite special. These are great performances.