October in Toronto: two Mozart-and-Verdi nights at the COC, Reich at 90, and Jan Lisiecki

Every month we go through dozens of season pages so you don't have to, and this October was a hard one to narrow down. Here's what caught our eye.

The Canadian Opera Company runs two productions side by side all month: La Traviata, with Kathryn Lewek's COC debut as Violetta, and Atom Egoyan's Così fan tutte, reset in a private-school science lab. The TSO opens the month marking Manuel de Falla's 150th with El amor brujo and Petrushka, then welcomes Angela Hewitt for Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto (Oct 8–10) and Jan Lisiecki for Grieg (Oct 22–25).

Chamber and new music are just as busy. Soundstreams celebrates Steve Reich's 90th with Music for 18 Musicians on October 6, Pablo Ferrández opens Music Toronto's season with solo Bach, Britten and Cassadó on the 8th, and Opera Atelier sends Orpheus to the underworld in Charpentier's Descent of Orpheus at Koerner Hall on the 22nd. Tafelmusik closes the month with a Baroque Fiesta of Spanish and Italian music.