Anne-Sophie Mutter, Royal Festival Hall Feb 18 [Japan Arts]

IF someone tells you opera is neurotic people singing about love and death, they’re not wrong. But in four centuries’ existence as an art form it has occasionally explored other possibilities, including political engagement. And prime examples are the dark, acerbic collaborations between Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill that most famously included The Threepenny Opera but just as punchily embraced The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, which gets a new production at English National Opera, Feb 16-20.

Written in 1928 during the anything-goes period of Germany’s Weimar Republic – think Cabaret and Christopher Isherwood – Mahagonny is a satire on the evils of Western capitalism as seen in the collective sleaze, greed and corruption of the USA (no change there in a hundred years). And if the narrative gets preachy, as Brecht tends to, there’s the joyous distraction of Weill’s pungent score with hit numbers like the Alabama song (“O show me the way to the next whisky bar”) forever associated with the iconically cracked voice of Weill’s wife Lotte Lenya.

The crucial thing with Mahagonny stagings is to prevent the show running out of steam halfway through. So fingers crossed for ENO’s director Jamie Manton. And for conductor Andre de Ridder, making his first appearance in the Coliseum pit since he was announced as the company’s next director of music. Runs to Feb 20. eno.org

• The London Handel Festival grows ever bigger – this year it’s five weeks of concerts that take place in venues associated with the great composer, like St George’s Hanover Square (his parish church) and the house in Brook Street where he lived. But everything starts Feb 18 with a performance of his dramatic oratorio Saul at Smith Square, ,conducted by the Festival’s artistic lead Jonathan Cohen. Full details: london-handel-festival.com

• In a big week for big-time violinists, Joshua Bell plays Prokofiev in recital at Wigmore Hall, Feb 13: wigmore-hall.org.uk James Ehnes is at the same venue, Feb 16, with Ravel. And the beyond-illustrious Anne-Sophie Mutter is at the Royal Festival Hall, Feb 18, playing the Tchaikovsky Concerto with the LPO: southbankcentre.co.uk

As for pianists, Pavel Kolesnikov plays Brahms’ 2nd Concerto with the RPO under the young conductor Adam Hickox (following the footsteps of his father Richard), Cadogan Hall, Feb 19: cadoganhall.com And winner of the 2021 Leeds Competition, Alim Beisembayev, plays what should be a standout recital of Liszt, Schubert, Chopin at Wigmore Hall, Feb 19: wigmore-hall.org.uk

• Donald Runnicles is the leading British conductor it’s easy to forget because so much of his career has flourished outside Britain – at the helm of major companies like the San Francisco Opera and Dresden Philharmonic. But he makes a rare appearance at the Festival Hall, Feb 19, taking the Philharmonia through Bruckner’s heavyweight 8th Symphony: sometimes, and not inappropriately, called The Apocalyptic. Visionary, but a long sit. southbankcentre.co.uk

l February 14 being Valentine’s Day, there’s no shortage of cheesy concerts happening on that date, most of them involving Chopin or Rachmaninov and not worth bothering about. But if you do need somewhere to play footsie in the stalls with an orchestral soundtrack, try the Valentine’s Opera Gala at Cadogan Hall, which has the RPO with tenor Nicky Spence. He’ll probably be in a kilt and rather camp, but with a pleasing twinkle in the eye and voice. And it’s a fine voice too. cadoganhall.com