If you’re a classical music lover who will be in New York City on New Year’s Eve, perhaps Times Square isn’t on the top of your list of destinations for revelry. Here are three more than viable options for your last concert experience of 2011 ...more...
Arts America Blog
Merry Unemployment
December 24, 2011 by
As the San Francisco Opera goes dark at the end of the year, many tenured members of the orchestra, chorus, and ballet are technically laid off. A loophole in California law allows these artists to claim unemployment insurance payments. Labor law and benefits, created for office and factory workers, poorly fit performing arts; some of the greatest abuses and shortfalls occur in the area of unemployment benefits.
Like teachers who have …more…
Hansel for the Holidays at the Metropolitan Opera
December 16, 2011 by
Angelika Kirschschlager as Hansel and Miah Persson as Gretel; photo by Marty Sohl, culled from the Metropolitan Opera website.
If there is one definitive, reigning holiday tradition at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, it’s Engelbert Humperdinck’s fairy tale opera Hansel and Gretel. Since its Metropolitan Opera premiere on November 25 in 1905 with the composer in attendance, the work has been frequently performed by the company …more…
New Orleans Museum of Art turns 100 with a party
December 15, 2011 by
In most any other major North American city an art museum would commemorate an anniversary with a dry, stuffy affair consisting of a string quartet quietly playing Haydn or Brahms while hor d’oeuvres would be passed along to attendees by a wait staff in thick-starched black and white uniforms.
New Orleans Museum of Art (Photo courtesy of NOCVB)
But this is New Orleans and when the New Orleans Museum of Art …more…
Opera Colorado Brings Mozart to the Mile High City in 2012
December 10, 2011 by
Opera Colorado’s upcoming 2012 season is scheduled to kick off with an Italian opera, composed by an Austrian legend; Mozart’s inimitable The Marriage of Figaro. It has been seven years since the company’s last performance of the well known classic. The four scheduled performance are to span two weeks this February. ...more...
Bay Area Arts Mailing List Exchanges Go Big
November 22, 2011 by
Are you a Domestic Duo, a Fast Track Family, Country Casual, or New Homesteader? Do you have “Gray Power” or belong to the “Second City Elite?”
These are just a few of the monikers used to label audience members in “The Big List,” a mailing list pool maintained by Theater Bay Area. Because 200 organizations (not all in the Bay Area) have participated in the list since 2008, if you have …more…
Verdi’s ‘Un Ballo’ a stunner for New Orleans
November 19, 2011 by
When Giuseppe Verdi composed “Un Ballo in Maschera,” the political climate was rife with Italian nationalism and those in the various provinces made calls for Victor Emmanuel II, the king of Sardinia, to be named the first king of a united Italy. Indeed, the composer’s very name was used as an acrostic by the angry mobs chanting “V.E.R.D.I.!” The acrostic stood for “Victor Emmanuel, Rei di Italia, or Victor Emmanuel, …more…
Verdi’s ‘A Masked Ball’ reset at Mardi Gras
November 16, 2011 by
Giuseppe Verdi never made it to the New Orleans Mardi Gras in his lifetime, but thanks to the efforts of New Orleans Opera Association (NOOA) artistic director Robert Lyall, his music will make the trip and opera enthusiasts cannot long endure the wait. Maestro Lyall will be on hand leading his orchestra this weekend as the NOOA reimagines Un Ballo in Maschera (A Masked Ball), a Verdi thriller of intrigue loosely based on the historical assassination of King Gustav III of Sweden. ...more...
JPAS event tonight features ‘Phantom’
November 9, 2011 by
Brad Little, a man who made his mark playing the title role of the “Phantom of the Opera” on the national tour returns to New Orleans tonight with the first of two fundraiser events for the Jefferson Performing Arts Society (JPAS). Tonight’s event at Tulane’s Dixon Hall also stars local cabaret and musical theatre star Leslie Castay and nationally prominent operatic tenor Juan Carlos Valls.
Brad Little stars in events tonight, Friday …more…
A Provocative Preview: Gotham Chamber Opera and Composer Nico Muhly Present Dark Sisters
October 31, 2011 by
An October 13 performance at the New York City venue Le Poisson Rouge, entitled “Gotham Chamber Opera and Nico Muhly Conspire,” often felt like an insurrection of sorts—if not against institutional opera per se—against an attitude of sterile gentility and divisive pretention. One part eclectic recital, one part season preview, Gotham Chamber Opera presented an intimate set of disparate songs and provocative performances, all while promoting the upcoming world premiere …more…
Cultural arts guide
August 24, 2011 by
Culture, at its root, is the sum total of our collective intelligence and achievement as a species – the expressions of our creativity as a group of people and a society. It is a delicate phenomenon, constantly in flux, and seemingly everyone has their own idea about what it is and isn’t. We call dance, art, drama cultural arts because they help people to refine feelings, tastes, thoughts and develop their soul and body, while at the same time reflecting today’s customs and …more…
