Choosing a concert opener is an art in its own right. Fashions shift: the traditional overture has fallen from favour in recent years, and you might go seasons now without hearing such one-time favourites as The Thieving Magpie or Euryanthe. The opening slot is more likely to contain something short and contemporary, or worthy and obscure (cynics call it ‘box-ticking repertoire’). Or it might be empty, tipping you straight into a symphony or concerto the way a Michelin-starred chef presents his signature creation – unadorned, on a bare white plate.

The Symphony Orchestra of India began its latest UK tour with John Williams’s ‘Imperial March’ from The Empire Strikes Back – and goodness alone knows why. Nothing wrong with playing film music in a symphonic concert, of course; more orchestras should do it. But such an ominous piece (it’s basically Darth Vader’s leitmotif)? Maybe it’s just something that the SOI and its guest conductor, Richard Farnes, enjoy playing together – a three-minute blast of Technicolor orchestration to get the fingers loosened up. It’s as valid a reason as any.

While we writhe in self-doubt, in Mumbai they’re playing western classics without apology

Then we were on to Brahms’s Second Piano Concerto, with Pavel Kolesnikov as soloist, and a 45-minute symphonic suite of Wagner’s Parsifal, arranged by Andrew Gourlay. The following night in London, under Alpesh Chauhan, the SOI was due to play Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier Suite and Stravinsky’s Petrushka. That’s some serious bling. But if you heard this relatively young (it was founded in 2006) orchestra on its 2019 tour, you’ll already know that it’s a cracking outfit. Farnes’s programme offered something different: a chance to hear the SOI stretch out and sing in music where brilliance is never, in itself, sufficient.

It’s safe to say that they nailed it, if that isn’t too coarse an image for playing of such concentration and beauty. The opening horn call in the Brahms felt daringly slow and Kolesnikov – who presumably specified the tempo – responded with a solo that lingered, sighed and fell away; the woodwind response seemed to melt on the tongue. That’s one quality of the SOI – a woodwind section of quite extraordinary mellowness and musicianship. The flutes make a particularly ravishing sound; later, in the third movement, the first oboe, Richard Hewitt, responded with aching tenderness to Sevak Avanesyan’s noble cello solo. Another strength is the string playing. The SOI, like most major orchestras, is a multinational body, and in 2019 the Russian-flavoured sound of its violin section (largely recruited from former Soviet states) was very audible. They seem to have bedded in a bit since then. The golden tone and taste for expressive portamenti was not new, but the way they breathed and phrased together did seem like a more recent development. Possibly working with an opera conductor as experienced as Farnes has had an effect. The Brahms was simultaneously epic and intimate (Farnes and Kolesnikov maintained very spacious tempi throughout), and as for Parsifal: well, we know from Opera North what Farnes can achieve in this otherworldly music.

Meriel Cunningham in Charles Court Opera’s panto Odyssey at Jermyn Street Theatre. Photo: Alex Brenner

Any serious Wagnerian will have misgivings about filleted concert suites, though Gourlay’s arrangement was certainly tasteful (possibly too tasteful – I missed the Flower Maidens). But there could be no misgivings about the SOI’s response: the deep, solemn weight of the brass; woodwinds that billed and cooed with surpassing tenderness in the Good Friday music and, above all, the refinement and delicacy of those glowing strings. There’s a thought for next year. While western orchestras writhe in self-doubt, over in Mumbai – a city that practically defines the term ‘diversity’ – the SOI is pushing ahead with its mission to play the western classics without apology. There’s something to be said for believing in what you do.

Meanwhile, deep below Jermyn Street, the Charles Court Opera is presenting its annual pantomime, written and directed by the company’s artistic director John Savournin, with music by David Eaton. Last year it did Rumpelstiltskin, and apparently it was a knockout. This time it’s the Odyssey, and I still can’t credit that it’s possible to get belly-laughs out of the Eumenides. There’s a candy-coloured set, a small omni-talented cast (many familiar from CCO’s G&S productions, so they can carry a tune as well as deliver a gag), and – this being Homer, after all – a talking (and singing) horse.

Critics have been asked not to spoil the punchlines, but imagine being sat in a confined space and power-hosed with pop-culture gags (‘If you know this tune you’re over 40’ they sang at one point, and they weren’t wrong), ludicrously repurposed TV themes and enough groan-inducing classical puns to fill several Trojan horses and still have enough left over to hold the pass at Thermopylae. You have to be very smart to be quite this silly. Dust off your E.V. Rieu, and see it – you’ll thank me.