The Rossetti Ensemble play Conway Hall

IT was only a few months ago that Simon Rattle stood down as music director of the London Symphony Orchestra; but with the dust still clinging to his shoes, he’s back – now called Conductor Laureate (for life) – to deal with some unfinished business.

Among the highlights of his time at the LSO were concert performances of Janáček operas that had the makings of a series. And it continues Jan 11 & 14 at the Barbican with Jenůfa: a piece of heart-stopping power in the right hands, which these will surely be. Swedish soprano Agneta Eichenholz (star of the Royal Opera’s Lulu not so long back) takes the title role. Katarina Karneus and Nicky Spence support. A hot ticket. barbican.org.uk

• Comparably hot is the Royal Opera’s opening show for the new year: the emotional assault and battery that is Richard Strauss’s Elektra, in a new production by the always interesting Christof Loy. Antonio Pappano conducts, with Nina Stemme and Karita Mattila leading the cast. Not a pretty piece, it will shove you into 2024 with a vengeance. Runs Jan 12-30. roh.org.uk

• Otherwise, most classical venues haven’t quite climbed out of their post-Christmas stupor – except for Wigmore Hall which soldiers on heroically with concerts every night. The Leeds Piano Competition winner Alim Beisembayev plays Ravel’s fiercely difficult Gaspard on Jan 5. Tenor Ian Bostridge will screw every atom of intensity from a sequence of Schubert songs on Jan 6. Jan 7 has a standard-looking programme of Schubert and Musorgsky played un-standardly on an accordion by the young Italian virtuoso Samuele Telari. And Jan 9 has Russian cellist Anastasia Kobekina with French pianist Cedric Tiberghien with works from their respective homelands, culminating in Shostakovich and Debussy sonatas. If you can’t make the Telari or Kobekina concerts, they’re both being livestreamed on the Wigmore website and will stay there, easily accessible, for a while. Full details: wigmore-hall.org.uk

• Also back in business are the venerable Sunday concerts at Conway Hall, Holborn, which launches its optimistically-entitled ‘Spring Season’ on Jan 7 with Mozart, Poulenc and Schubert from the Rossetti Ensemble: a group of prominent solo-status musicians like pianist John Lenehan and violist Sarah-Jane Bradley. conwayhall.org.uk

• Finally a shout out for ongoing shows that, having seen, I can commend. One is the magical small-scale production of Stephen Sondheim’s Pacific Overtures playing at the Menier Chocolate Factory until February. A piece about the opening up of Japan to the West in the mid-19th century, it’s done (as Sondheim originally intended) by an all-Asian cast – not all of whom sing brilliantly but the collective effort is entrancing and the staging manages spectacular effects in a tight space. menierchocolatefactory.com

• Also recommended is Matthew Bourne’s balletic adaptation of Edward Scissorhands, playing Sadler’s Wells until Jan 20. Based on Danny Elfman’s music for the film, the score they dance to isn’t special: no great competition for Tchaikovsky or Prokofiev. But the dance itself, alongside the design and staging, is a joy – with an extraordinary performance on the night I went from Liam Mower in the title role. A modern fairy tale retold with wit and charm. sadlerswells.com