Summer Stock is a new old-fashioned musical bringing joy to audiences at Goodspeed. It is unabashedly old-fashioned.

Hip Hop Across The Pillow was curated by Melanie George and Ali Rosa-Salas. We were fortunate enough to catch the very last totally engrossing performance yesterday.

Julianne Boyd, the founding artistic director of Barrington Stage Company, retired last year. Unburdened by administrative responsibilities, she has been lured back to direct a dark, moody masterpiece, Faith Healer by Brian Friel (1929-2015) the greatest Irish playwright of his Generation. For this triumphant return she cherry picked a dream team trio of Christopher Innvar (Frank), the faith healer, Gretchen Eglof his long abused wife Grace, and Mark Dold as the whimsical roadie Teddy.

Tippet Rise Art Center welcomes musicians and concertgoers for its eighth concert season, beginning August 18 and running through September 17. With more than 15 indoor and outdoor performances planned over five weekends, the season features a wide range of repertoire performed by artists who can be young trailblazers or legendary musicians. A highlight of this summer’s season is the debut of the new Wander series, which moves musicians and audiences between different works of art installed at the art center

Stravinsky's "The NIghtingale" sets a simple but thoughtful Hans Christian Anderson tale to music. Production values sizzle. With Schoenberg's "Erwartung," the setting of the psychologically-driven soliloquy is switched from forest to hospital. The use of dancers as mute characters adds depth and diversity to the narrative.

“Rusalka” ranks as Dvorák’s most popular opera and with good reason.  Applying Wagnerian principles with leitmotifs and in sung-through fashion, it also draws from Czech folk music.  The thoroughly romantic, luxuriant music possesses extractable set pieces of compelling melody and emotion.  The fairy tale story draws on several sources, mixing light and dark, with a resulting dramatic outcome.

In his first season as artistic director Alan Paul has selected the 1995 play by Pearl Cleage. Set during the Harlem Renaissance its a good but not great play given a flawed production directed by Candis C. Jones for Barrington Stage Company.

The Law Of The Heart, an ancient scroll, speaks of the Three Treasures:  The Way, The Teacher, and The Scripture. Each plays an important role along the spiritual path we walk.

Claude Debussy sought a prospective opera libretto in which characters seemed out of place, out of time, and only half disclosed. For “Pelléas et Mélisande,” he found his soulmate in future Nobel Prize winner Maurice Maeterlinck, whose opaqueness suited Debussy so well that he adapted the playwright’s work almost verbatim. The result was a turn-of-the-century landmark - Debussy’s only completed opera.

The power of Fences derives from the mastery with which August Wilson conflated the mojo of the blues with the paradigms of Greek tragedy. This play is as intricately structured as works by Sophocles and Aeschylus. While rooted in the African American culture of Pittsburgh, Wilson was at heart every bit a classicist.

The beauty of art and the tragedy of the climate crisis live side by side in a stunning new exhibit at the Design Museum of Chicago. Some 30 pieces ranging in size from framed art to wall-length tell the story of why we are “At the Precipice” in this record-breaking hot and stormy summer of 2023.

The uniqueness of Santa Fe Opera's facility and setting make for a stunning visualization of Monteverdi's early masterpiece. With the back stagewall initially open to nature, the scenario begins in literal and figurative brightness; followed by a threatening storm in the mesas behind; leading to brutal darkness on stage with deliciously harsh lighting effects. Modern orchestration smooths the Baroque edges of the music.

 Margaret Swan’s solo exhibition Flow investigates the duality of free-flowing forms versus structures of containment, choreographing an elegant dance between the two. The fluid, curving planes of her polychrome aluminum sculpture suggest movement, while contrasting latticed frameworks create tension and a sense of restraint. The final effect is that of water passing through nets or vessels—triumphantly finding its own way.

Each of us, each of us all, have lost someone or something.  Each of us has faced fear – fear of loss, fear of failure, fear of death.  In the moments of experiencing those fears,  and of the sorrow that can accompany them, they were real.  In some instances, they were debilitating.

A series of august jazz programming, is the upcoming month. With our friends at the Boston University Tanglewood Institute paying increased attention to jazz, two local dates by itinerant pianist Peggy Stern, and the second annual Bousquet Jazz Festival, there’s plenty to choose from.

Noted for its Wax Works the Annisquam Seafair is now 178-years-old. We attended this past weekend.

Now 47, the French Canadian dancer, artistic director, and choreographer Eric Gauthier joined Stuttgart Ballet in 1996, where he rose to the rank of soloist. Initially with six dancers, in 2007 he founded Gauthier Dance//Dance Company Theaterhaus Stuttgart.

"Is it Thursday Yet", playing at the La Jolla Playhouse, tells the story of dancer Jenn Freeman, who was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) when she was 33 years old.  Using actual recordings of her therapy sessions and home videos Jenn’s father recorded as she grew up, the play is essentially a documentary of Jenn Freeman’s life from infancy to young adulthood. Neither Jenn nor her family knew she had ASD.  

he advent of Freudianism somehow severed the mind from the body, but over the past decades, there has been a return to the wisdom of late 19th century philosopher William James who saw the body and mind as deeply interrelated.  

An enthusiastic cyclist, violinist Marieke Neumann was the developer of the “Bach Bicycle Route” in central Germany, featuring guided tours to important locations from the composer’s life. Mezzo-soprano Anna-Luise Oppelt joins her for Bach by Bike to visit towns and cities where Johann Sebastian Bach lived and worked.

Berkshire Opera Festival continues its 2023 summer season with a mainstage production of La Bohème on August 26, August 29, and September 1 at The Colonial Theater in Pittsfield, MA. One of the most beloved operatic love stories of all time, La Bohème is based on Henri Murger's 1851 novel, Scènes de la vie de Bohème, which follows the lives of young people living in the Latin Quarter of Paris

The story is about Laurentino, a man in New York who immigrated from Mexico half a century before.  On his deathbed, he reveals an undisclosed past to his family.  He had a first wife in Mexico who died in the crossing and a son who returned to his native land. A poignant metaphor of the butterfly recurs in the music and conversation.   When the butterfly emerges from its chrysalis and moves on from its life as a caterpillar, it never returns to the same location, reenacting life’s transformation in a new land.  It is only the descendants that circle back to the homeland of earlier generations.

The narrative is historical only in the broadest sense.  While the plot points actually occurred from AD 58 to AD 65, not only are they condensed into one day, but their order is shifted!  Further, the librettist fancifully changes the character of characters, making some good who were actually bad and vice versa.  Who would have thought of the barbaric and narcissistic Nero as also having room for love and magnanimity?  So, for those who lambaste Hollywood for being fast and loose with the facts, let it be known that it had models to draw on

Marina Carr has joined Lady Augusta Gregory in the pantheon of playwrights pictured on the walls of the Abbey Theatre in Dublin.  Her new play "Girl on the Altar" is playing now.

Tony Bennett who won 20 Grammys has died at 96. With a raspy voice that defied description he was a master of phrasing, swing, and insightful interpretation. I saw him upclose in a 1980s pairing with pianist Dave McKenna for PBS. Then more recently at Tanglewood.