Boston Fine Arts Holiday 2008 Event Guide and Preview
Our Pick of Boston's Best Music, Theatre and Dance Offerings
By: Larry Murray - Nov 18, 2008
Audiences flow between Boston and the Berkshires on a regular basis. In addition, Massachusetts cultural organizations continue to attract large numbers of visitors from across the country and around the world, and for good reason.
Here are our top picks for the Boston Holidays 2008:
Holiday Pops at Symphony Hall
December 11-31
The seats come out and the tables go in at Symphony Hall as the BSO continues one of Boston's most beloved holiday traditions, Holiday Pops. Conductor Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops open the 2008 Boston Pops Holiday Series on Thursday, December 11 and continue through Wednesday, December 31.
The Holiday Pops season includes six special kids' matinee concerts. These family concerts include a children's sing-along, and parents can bring cameras to take photos of their children with Santa. Table seats will include a kid-friendly menu, along with surprise holiday treats.
There's also a special New Year's Eve celebration on December 31, an amazing event with music, merriment and dancing.
Holiday Pops
The Christmas Revels
December 12 - 30
The Christmas Revels is a celebration of the Winter Solstice which runs for 18 performances at Sanders Theatre at Harvard. It is as unusual as it is delightful.
"Church meets Tavern" is the theme for this year's annual holiday presentation, and is loosely based on the characters and setting created by Thomas Hardy in Under the Greenwood Tree.
The impressive Mellstock Band acts as the featured guest artists and tradition bearers for 2008 – comprising four renowned singers from England, replete with motley string and wind instruments and the notorious bass "serpent". Joining them in their 80-member ensemble will be a lusty Village Quire, The Casterbridge Children, The Pinewoods Morris Men, Cambridge Symphonic Brass Ensemble, actors Richard Snee ("Sankta" in the 2006 "German" Christmas Revels) and Tim Sawyer, musician Bruce Randall, soloist Mary Casey, and musician and song leader David Coffin.
The Christmas Revels this year features both sacred and "village" music, poetry and stories, and old favorites like the ancient Abbots Bromley Horn Dance, Susan Cooper's poem, The Shortest Day, The Boars Head Carol, the topsy-turvy Lord of Misrule, and Revels' rousing and participatory signature piece, The Lord of the Dance, which is likely to have you singing – and dancing - through the aisles. The company has that effect on its audience. Go. Bring friends or family. It's different. It's fun.
Christmas Revels
Handel's Messiah at Symphony Hall
December 5 - 7
Audiences have been enjoying Handel and Haydn's Messiah performances for 155 consecutive years. This year, famed British opera conductor Paul Daniel promises to deliver an unforgettable rendition of the beloved Messiah, which has become a Boston tradition.
There are many performances of Messiah around the world during the season, but it is truly a special treat to hear it performed on the instruments and in the style of the period in which it was composed, and sung by voices so glorious.
Should that leave you wanting more, you can have a second serving of early music when H & H performs A Bach Christmas at Jordan Hall, on Thursday December 18 and Sunday December 21. Featured are the Bach Magnificat, BWV 243 and two Cantatas, Bach: Cantata 191, "Gloria in excelsis Deo" and Bach: Cantata 151, "Süßer Trost, mein Jesus kömmt," with John Finney conducting.
Handel and Haydn Performances
The Boston Ballet's Nutcracker
at The Opera House
November 28 - December 28
This year the company moves its 41st Annual Nutcracker to the gloriously restored Opera House, which will significantly improve the sightlines and comfort of the audience over some of its previous venues.
Having worked with the Boston Ballet for several seasons, I can testify that there is no more wonderful Nutcracker than theirs. With live orchestra led by Principal Conductor Jonathan McPhee and Associate Conductor Mark Churchill, an enormous company of dancers and glorious sets by Helen Pond and Herbert Senn, it is guaranteed to bring waves of nostalgia and joy to the audience. Over the course of the run of 35 performances, more than 250 children from the Boston School of Ballet will participate. As usual the large company will rotate the key roles, giving everyone a chance to dance their toes off.
Audiences of course love the story by E.T.A. Hoffman, which follows the enchanting journey of young Clara, who receives a nutcracker as a gift at a Christmas Eve party. Her nutcracker is ultimately transformed into a handsome young prince, who leads her through an enchanted forest and on to the Palace of Sweets, where she meets the Sugar Plum Fairy. Among the ballet's most famous and memorable moments are a battle between toy soldiers and overgrown mice, a Christmas tree that grows to huge heights, the pas de deux for the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier, and a shimmering snow scene.
Boston Ballet Nutcracker
Aurélia's Oratorio
at American Repertory Theatre
November 28 - January 3
Aurélia Thierrée was first seen on the A.R.T. stage as a young girl, performing in the Cirque Imaginaire with her parents. Now an actress and acrobat in her own right, Aurélia has charmed audiences around the world with her Oratorio, a dazzling display of stage illusion, inspired by the magic of music hall and circus, and co-created with her mother Victoria Thierrée Chaplin. She is joined by Jaime Martinez and Julio Monge for a look behind the red velvet curtain at a topsy-turvy world of surreal surprises, tricks, and transformations, where "dreams come to life and the impossible happens before your very eyes."
American Repertory Theatre
Huntington Theatre Company - Rock 'n' Roll
Extended by popular demand to December 13
Originally this hit production was scheduled to end on December 7 but the company has announced an extension to satisfy demand for tickets until December 13. The brilliant production of Rock 'n' Roll by Tom Stoppard, is described by BFA critic Mark Favermann in his review as an absolute "must-see production." He describes it as one of the finest shows of the last few years in Boston. Now, due to the demand for tickets, six more performances have been added. And there are many more unusual offerings in the pipeline. To wit...
Lea DeLaria December 11-13
at the Huntington Theatre Company
Lea DeLaria is an accomplished jazz musician, the star of many Broadway shows, and a groundbreaking queer stand-up comic. This holiday season, she'll bring her deliciously raucous and sophisticated act to Boston. Lea promises to sing your favorite Christmas songs in the inaugural performance of Upstairs at the Calderwood, the Huntington's new winter cabaret series.
Lea DeLaria's credits include appearing on Broadway in On the Town (OBIE Award, Drama Desk) and The Rocky Horror Show, on film in Edge of Seventeen and The First Wives Club, and on television in "Will and Grace" and "One Life to Live."
Judy Gold in Mommy Queerest
at the Wimberly Theatre, Calderwood Pavillion
December 26-31
Emmy Award-winning comedian Judy Gold returns to the Huntington with her outrageous stand-up comedy after last year's triumphant 25 Questions for a Jewish Mother. Bold, brass, and clocking in at 6'3", Judy is ready to divulge all the comic highs and lows of being a Jewish, lesbian, working mom raising two boys in New York City. Judy's electric humor and outlandish opinions are enough to keep anyone rolling in the aisle all night long.
Performances will take place at the Virginia Wimberly Theatre in the Stanford Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts.
Judy Gold's stand-up specials include "Comedy Central Presents Judy Gold," "Comedy Central Tough Crowd Stands Up" and a half-hour special on HBO, which received a Cable Ace Award. She hosts HBO's "At the Multiplex With Judy Gold", won an Emmy Award for her work on "The Rosie O'Donnell Show," and was featured in the hit film The Aristocrats.
Like so many great comics, both Lea and Judy honed their skills in the tiny clubs and noisy venues of Cape Cod's lively Provincetown scene where you have to be funny or you quickly became background.
Huntington Theatre
Lyric Stage - The Mystery of Irma Vep
November 28- December 21
If you have overdosed on canned holiday music, endless commercials and plastic Christmas trees, you can escape the madness for a counter-Christmas treat, Charles Ludlam style. Lyric Stage presents what can only be called a madcap theatrical escapade, The Mystery of Irma Vep featuring Neil A. Casey and John Kuntz. It will be directed by the company's artistic director, Spiro Veloudos. The company has an intimate theatre at the YWCA and is the recipient of the 2006 Elliot Norton Prize for Sustained Excellence.
Instead of the shepherds, wise men and manger, you will find yourself in the company of a werewolf, a vampire, an Egyptian princess, a cursed estate, on the proverbial "dark and stormy night." This Obie Award-winning, uproarious high-camp tribute to Gothic horror films and Victorian melodrama features eight characters in a quick-change marathon of gender-dending hilarity. This is a treat for the whole family, especially those who may have missed Halloween. Or wish it could go on forever.
Lyric Stage Company
Inside Out: The Museum School Art Sale November 20-23
Hurry. This is your last chance to get art bargains at the annual Museum School Arts Sale. The sale continues from Thursday, November 20 through Sunday, November 23 from noon to 6 PM. The Museum School is located next to the Museum of Fine Arts at 230 The Fenway.