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Mark Anthony Turnage was very young when composer Hans Werner Henze asked him to create an opera for the first Munich Biennale Summer Festival. Turnage, already attracting attention for his musical language which draws on Miles Davis, Janácek and Stravinsky, had caught Henze’s ear.  Henze’s own work ranges in reference from serialism, atonality, Stravinsky, Italian music, Arabic music and jazz, as well as traditional schools of German composition. 

Sunday, September 11, the Clark Art Institute continues its Locals at the Lunder Center series with a free concert by two-guitar duo Elkhorn, followed by local musical group Sound For. Presented in partnership with Belltower Records (North Adams, Massachusetts), the performance kicks off an upcoming series of live music events that feature new experimentations in sound, in conjunction with the changing of the seasons. The concert takes place at 4:15 pm on the Lunder Center’s Moltz Terrace. In the event of inclement weather, the event moves to the Clark’s auditorium.

The ’62 Center for Theatre and Dance unveiled its live, in-person performances celebrating diverse and challenging theatre, music, and dance programming for the Williams College community and beyond.

Perhaps more than any other, “Marriage” is considered to be the finest comic opera ever written, if not the finest opera altogether. 

Close encounters with music is an innovative and captivating presenter of music. Sublime chamber music concerts are enhanced by entertaining, erudite, and lively commentary by artistic director Yehuda Hanani. Programs include international soloists, and intriguing themes.

The director, Luk Perceval, turned L. Feuchtwanger's book EXIL into a 3 1/2 hour long journey for audiences and ensemble.

Jeanne Renaud the Montreal artist, dancer and choreographer has passed away at 94. She created choreography for the film Brèves histoires de pierres muettes (2018) and le Projet Feldman/Renaud à la Salle Bourgie in 2021, with the dancers Louise Bédard and Marc Boivin.

The opera is set in the 1930s, offering shades of the Hollywood glamor and fascist depravity of that time.  This conceit does allow for the visual appeal of period newsreels projections and a more varied look in Constance Hoffman’s appealing and fashionable costumery, but the conceptual rationale for the time shift is unclear. 

"A Garden as a Work of Art ~ Or Gardening as an Artistic Activity" -- This garden poses a statement as well as a question. So, please follow the work described in this collaborative project and decide for yourself.

Marcus Gardley’s “Lear” is phenomenal in conception and breathtaking in execution.

The Moholy-Nagy Estate announces collaboration with web-3 photography organization Fellowship to launch its first NFT collection 

Opera Philadelphia brings Gioachino Rossini's Otello to the stage. Beethoven told Rossini that he should stay away from serious drama. It was not in his nature. That is not the only reason Rossini’s serious opera Otello has been largely ignored. When Verdi and Bioto wrote their Otello, it replaced Rossini’s in the repertoire. Now we can hear the glorious bel canto tenor Lawrence Brownlee and also Daniela Mack dazzle and emote as Rodrigo and Desdemona.

On Monday, October 10, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), offers free admission and activities all day as part of an annual Indigenous People’s Day celebration. Visitors are invited to enjoy music and dance, drop in on a variety of engaging family art-making activities, and explore galleries showcasing 20th-century Native art from the Southwest as well as Indigenous artworks from across the U.S. and Canada

The Boston- and U.K.-based Enigma Chamber Opera continues its exploration of chamber works by Benjamin Britten with two performances of the English composer’s biblically inspired 1968 opera “The Prodigal Son.” The work is the third of Britten's three Parables for Church Performance; Enigma mounted the first, “Curlew River,” to critical acclaim last fall. This new production is directed by Artistic Director Kirsten Z. Cairns, who finds in the universal story of parent/child reconciliation and forgiveness a balm for an often bitterly divided society.

Sounds of Hazel, choreographer Tiffany Rea-Fisher’s is a new ballet inspired by the life of virtuoso classical and jazz pianist, singer, and civil rights activist Hazel Scott.

An amazing theatrical performance took place at the stage of the Volksbuehne, Berlin.  The Austrian performance artist Florentina Holzinger made her newest work „Ophelia's Got Talent“ into a show that stretched the technical abilities of the theatre to the fullest. 

Boston-based contemporary dance artist Rachel Linsky debuts “Hidden,” the latest in her ongoing choreographic series ZACHOR that seeks to preserve stories of WWII Holocaust survivors through dance. “Hidden” is inspired by the story of Holocaust survivor Aaron Elster who at 10 years old was hidden from the Nazis in a Polish family’s attic for two years.

Opera Philadelphia and the Obvious Agency present a choreographed Raven, based on Toshio Hosokawa's Monologue. The audience is transported by the fantastic music and dance.

The genesis of “Indecent” begins in Warsaw in 1906.  Young author Sholem Asch has written a Yiddish play called “God of Vengeance,” which acts as a play-within-a-play in “Indecent,”  as scenes from the former appear throughout the latter.  Portrayed passionately and with grand gestures by Billy Cohen, Asch entreats other writers to participate in a table reading.  After the reading, I. L. Peretz, Warsaw’s most distinguished Yiddish author, tells Asch to burn the play.  Despite contentiousness and only a modicum of support, a Yiddish language company produces the play.  

Leapin Lizards! Berkshire Theatre Group has mounted Seascape Edward Albee's absurdist answer to Beckett's masterpiece, Waiting for Godot. Albee, one of America's leading playwrights won a Pulitizer for it (one of three) but it was a flop with critics and audiences. The Broadway run ended after just 65 performances. Hit or miss you can draw your own conclusions based on the production directed by Eric Hill.

Although Donizetti concocted this superficially light-hearted confection, “Elixir” is a serious delight from curtain to curtain, both as an entertainment and as a great work of composition.  As we have come to expect, Livermore Valley Opera once again punches above its weight with a totally appealing production that hits all the right notes, literally and figuratively.

Groundbreaking choreographer Shamel Pitts doesn’t dance around big issues—instead, he dances into them.

Palm Beach Dramaworks (PBD) in Southeast Florida will open its 2022-23 season with "4000 Miles." The comedy-drama by Amy Herzog was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. PBD's production will run from Oct. 14-30, with preview performances on Oct. 12 and 13.

The playwright Tom Stoppdard’s mother, his only connection to his earliest life, born in Czechoslovakia and traveled to Singapore and then to England. She did not discuss her Jewish origins. Growing up in Britain, Stoppard asked her to write the family story. He gave her a beautiful notebook, which she returned. She would scribble the bare outlines  in a small cheap exercise book.  Now he fleshes the story out on stage in New York.

The Buffalo AKG Art Museum (formerly the Albright-Knox Art Gallery) has announced the promotion of Dr. Tina Rivers Ryan, a specialist in modern and contemporary art and one of the world’s leading experts on art and technology, to the position of Curator.