Avi Avital plays the Wigmore Hall [Christoph Köstlin]

WE all deserve a break; and after weeks of round-the-clock Messiahs, Christmas Oratorios and more arcane takes on musical seasonality, most venues will be pulling down the shutters for the next few days. But not all.

The indefatigable Wigmore Hall is barely pausing for breath over Christmas, so it’s the place to make for it you’re feeling sonically deprived – starting Dec 22 with the elite choral & instrumental ensemble Siglo de Oro. Their name refers to Spain’s so-called Golden Century, but their programme for this concert is 17th-century English: Dowland, Byrd and the popular-in-his-time John Playfair whose “Granny’s Delight” sounds like something to lift spirits. I’ve no idea what it is, but Siglo are singing it. With all the delight they can muster.

If you think the words “dynamic” and “mandolin” don’t go together, you’ve never heard the Israeli mandolin-player Avi Avital who comes to the Wigmore Dec 23 with the period group Il Giardino Armonico. He’s a fiery-fingered virtuoso, and will doubtless be so here, playing Vivaldi, Handel, CPE Bach.

Dec 27 has the young prize-winning pianist Ariel Lanyi playing Beethoven. And Dec 28 it’s that very fine baritone James Newby with pianist Joseph Middleton, in a programme that includes the premiere of a song cycle by the eminent composer Brian Elias. Long-term resident of Golders Green. Details of everything at wigmore-hall.org.uk

• Extended shows that carry on over the Christmas period include the soft-centred scariness of Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel at the Royal Opera House, which runs to Jan 7 (roh.org.uk); Matthew Bourne’s balletically sharp Edward Scissorhands danced to music from the film, at Sadler’s Wells to Jan 20 (sadlerswells.com); and Tchaikovsky’s inescapable Nutcracker at both the Coliseum, to Jan 7 (londoncoliseum.org) and Royal Opera House, to Jan 13 (roh.org.uk).

• Otherwise, there are two musically related exhibitions running over Christmas that are worth a visit if you haven’t seen them. Diva at the V&A South Kensington (vam.ac.uk) examines what it’s meant through history to be a “diva”, good and bad. And though it’s largely an excuse for the display of frocks worn by Maria Callas through to Shirley Bassey and Madonna, there’s a thoughtful underlying narrative of powerful, gifted women who take their careers into their own hands and, in the process, take on the Establishment – which duly falls at their feet.

Importantly, it also notes the graft behind the glitter. As Joan Sutherland (whose costume for her 1959 Royal Opera breakthrough in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor is exhibited) robustly said: “To be a diva, you’ve got to be like a horse”. Too true.

Less elegantly done but good, clean, interactive fun (especially for children) is the Science Museum’s Turn it up: the Power of Music – which takes a disappointingly pop-driven approach to the subject (not much here on Beethoven or Mozart) though there’s lots of fascinating new technology, and no less fascinating old tech.

Like the 19th-century pyrophone, an organ powered by fire. It caught alight but didn’t catch on. Health & Safety, I suppose. Details at sciencemuseum.org.uk