OperaRox, a passionate and persuasive group that is promoting new compositions for the human voice, presented the final program in the New York Opera Fest 2017. Clearly this is not the last word for opera.

The early music world comes to Boston every two years for the BEMF. This year its centerpiece opera was Andre Campra's "Le Carnaval de Venise," an opera-ballet, in its American premiere. It also reprised a hilarious pair of intermezzi, one of them the popular "La serva padrona," by Giovanni Pergolesi and Handel's Roman period oratorio "La Resurrezione." A good time was had by all.

Victor Cordell is a new contributor who will cover theatre and opera in the San Francisco and Bay area. We met at he conference of American Theatre Critics Association in San Francisco. He reviews playwright Kimber Lee's brownsville song (b-side for tray) by Shotgun Players at Ashby Stage in Berkeley, through July 9.

Christ Church is a vibrant coastal city rebuilding itself following a major earthquake devastation of six years ago. Contemporary architecture is on the rise, while historic treasures are being restored. Wellington, the capital city, is an urban wonderland with a thriving movie industry, world-class museums, outdoor cafes, an attractive waterfront, and beautiful botanical gardens.

Island City Stage hits practically all the right notes in world premiere production of The Goldberg Variations. The South Florida-based playwright and theater artist Stuart Meltzer's structure uses musical masterworks to illustrate variations in life situations. Humor, pathos and unpredictability are a potent combination in this comic-drama/

Coming to the American Ballet Theatre’s production of Onegin from a music and opera background, and a literary one as well, the advantages of dance are immediately apparent. This telling of the Onegin story is moving and beautiful to behold.

Kenneth Cole has created a huge space for events, gatherings, parties, and yes, operas. Located far west in Mid Manhattan, On Site Opera chose it for their American premier production of Darius Milhaud's The Guilty Mother.

Million Dollar Quartet is based on a true story of a rare event - the coming together in one studio of four rock 'n' roll legends: Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins. Set on December 4, 1956, at Sun Records in Memphis, It was a night to remember for all rock n' roll fans!

ATCA held its annual conference in San Francisco. Shakespeare is alive in well among Bay Area theater companies. The "City By the Bay" and environs offers an array of theatrical productions, from new works to the classics

Now dead for centuries amazingly a lot of people are pissed off about Shakespeare. The actor uttering "Et tu Brute" in a controversial NY production strongly evokes our American Caesar, The Donald. This was a context for a meeting of American Theatre Critics Association for a panel and performance at Cal Shakes.

Alan Gilbert gave his final New York concerts as music director of the New York Philharmonic this week, leading the annual Concerts in the Parks series in four boroughs. Wednesday's concert on the Great Lawn of Central Park was blessed with magnificent weather: clear skies and 80 degrees. Perfect.

The Irish playwright, Conor McPherson, challenges us to think about how we would react if the world turned upside down, and no longer functioned. How would we survive?

Composer Péter Eötvös took a monumental American work, Angels in America, and abstracted its spirit as an opera for the ages. Hallucinatory and death-directed, the opera version mixes spoken and played note language to convey both the anguish and rage of the victims of AIDS.

Joan Baez led the Four Voices to a packed house at their final concert tour stop at Tanglewood in Lenox, Massachusetts. The four women serenaded the audience for two plus hours on a beautiful spring evening.

The spirit of the boozing and boisterous rocker is vibrantly on stage at American Conservatory Theatre in An Evening with Janis Joplin. In an incarnation by Kacee Clanton the blues rock belter from Port Arthur, Texas is back where it all started during the flower power hippie era of sweet and wild San Francisco. The touring company of the Broadway musical is playing to packed houses.

The Shanghai Quartet is an internationally acclaimed chamber group which bridges the sensibilities of East and West. Focusing in their program on folk music, you could close your eyes and sometimes imagine Ferde Grofé and Aaron Copland. Bach crops up as a reference.

There was a long day of meetings at Marin Theatre Company. The executives of American Theatre Critics Association were hosted for dinner on a houseboat in Sausalito. Then it was back to the theatre for an evening performance of the Matthew Lopez dark comedy The Legend of Georgia McBride.

LoftOpera is committed to bringing opera to new, young audiences in welcoming performances which can be greeted with joy by both the artists and the audience. Pergolesi's Stabat Mater, one of the world's most beloved musical settings of a 13th century Christian poem, was actualized in a Brooklyn warehouse. The audience was moved and entranced.

The tight and compelling two-hander The Roommate by Jen Silverman premiered at the Humana Festival a couple of years ago. While attending an ATCA theatre conference we enjoyed a superb production at the San Francisco Playhouse. It is also scheduled for the Main Stage of the Williamstown Theatre Festival.

Matisse’s collectibles had a profound influence on his creative choices. Allowing us a priceless opportunity to see how the artist’s mind worked and the ways his creative process unfolded, this magnetic exhibition at the MFA Boston allows us to examine them in relationship to his art. As its only North American venue, Matisse in the Studio will only visit Boston.

When it comes to the exit of Alan Gilbert from the post of Music Director after only eight years, the New York Philharmonic has put on its bravest face. This week’s season-ending series of concerts, (promoted as “A Concert for Unity”) have featured starry opening acts for America’s oldest orchestra.

This summer the Clark Art Institute features four special exhibitions Picasso Encounters, an exhibition of prints with a few key paintings, as well as Orchestrating Elegance; Alma Tadema and the Marquand Music Room and two focused on prints and paintings by Helen Frankenthaler. The museum launched its expansion with a spate of blockbusters but is now moving into a new era with less hoopla under its reserved and scholarly French-born director Olivier Meslay.

The Bennington Center for the Arts, in collaboration with Summer Sonatina International Piano Camp, will be offering a diverse and exciting five-week Friday night concert series from June 23rd to July 21.

Jane Hudson is known to the Berkshire arts community as the other half of the rock duo, Jeff and Jane, as well as for tending shop at various incarnations of Hudson's Antiques. On Sunday, June 17 from 3:30 to 5:30 PM., an exhibition of her abstract works on paper will open at Hudson Art, 112 Water Street in Williamstown.

Woody Sez was mounted at the American Repertory Theatre in 2012. Now the brilliant actor/singer/writer David Lutken has expanded the show by an action-packed thirty-five minutes,and deepened his take on this iconic folk singer, who speaks clearly to our times. The Irish Repertory production is spot on throughout.