The Elysian Singers are in concert at St Dominic’s Priory, Mar 25

THE great child prodigies of music history are usually reckoned to be Mendel­ssohn and Mozart. But an even greater one was Erich Korngold, who had a ballet and two operas premiered in Vienna while he was a teenager and could well have become the leading Austrian composer of his time but for the rise of 1930s anti-Semitism. Being Jewish he read the signs, left for America, and wrote film music in Hollywood. But before leaving he completed – aged just 23 – an opera that gets a new production at English National Opera as from Mar 25. Called Die Tote Stadt (The Dead City), it’s a piece of luscious, late-romantic symbolism about a man obsessed with the memory of his late wife – and afflicted by the watery gloom of Bruges, the “Dead City” where the action takes place. There are no laughs, but the score is ravishing. The man is played by Swiss tenor Rolf Romei who sings the role a lot (and tells me he last did it in a Moscow staging that opened just as Russia invaded Ukraine: pretty uncom­fortable). The most important show ENO has presented in ages. Runs to April 8. eno.org

• If you want to see a music group that does things differently, and with a vengeance, look no further than the Manchester Collective. They play venues from conven­tional concert halls to nightclubs and warehouses, crossing genres as casually as you’d cross a street. And their event at Kings Place on Mar 24 is called Black Angels after a mind-altering piece by the avant-garde composer George Crumb that asks a string quartet to scream, shout, play their instruments upside down and pray (for strength to get through it, one assumes). It’s on the programme alongside Schubert’s Death and the Maiden quartet plus a commission from a New York hip-hop artist. Eclectic or what? kingsplace.co.uk

• More serenely, the Elysian Singers (who neither scream nor shout) have a concert of music for the Feast of the Annunciation at St Dominic’s Priory, NW5, on Mar 25. Appropriately Marian works by Britten, Monteverdi and Sir James MacMillan who has a close relationship with St Dominic’s and has been known to turn up at these concerts. elysiansingers.com

• Rachmaninov was born 150 years ago on April 1, and among events to mark the anniversary is a performance of his All Night Vigil, the Russian Orthodox ser­vice also called Vespers, on Mar 25, given by Crouch End Festival Chorus at St Jude’s Hampstead Garden Suburb. It won’t actually last all night, so thermos flasks and blankets aren’t required. Just keen ears. cefc.org.uk

• Checking in early for Easter, Hampstead Parish Church has a St Matthew Passion on Mar 26, sung by its professional choir, with orchestra. 6pm. Free entry.

• One of the classic pre-war British films was Alexander Korda’s Things to Come: a piece of early sci-fi featuring a score by Arthur Bliss. On Mar 26 the Barbican will show the film but with the score played live – by no less a band than the LSO who recorded the original soundtrack back in 1936. I doubt that any of the 1930s players will be on the stage, but those who have replaced them will presumably sound better! barbican.org.uk