If there's any place you should be looking out for classical music and opera then it's Moscow. Russia has an immense musical tradition and many of the world's greatest operas and symphonies were premiered in this town - Glinka, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Rimsky-Korsakov... the list goes on and on. You can count the contemporary Russian stars of the classical world on many hands and most of them still perform in Moscow to rapturous local crowds.

The home of Russian opera is of course the Bolshoi theatre, while the Stanislavsky theatre is also of an outstanding class as is the steadily growing Helikon opera.

For classical music you can choose from the Moscow conservatory, the Philharmonic named after Tchaikovsky or the International House of Music.

Note that July and August tends to be the time when most theatres and orchestras have their holidays or go on tour.