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  • MET OPERA: Les Pêcheurs de Perles (Encore)

    Bizet’s gorgeous opera of lust and longing set in the Far East returns to the Met stage for the first time in 100 years. Soprano Diana Damrau stars as Leïla, the beautiful Hindu priestess pursued by rival pearl divers competing for her hand. Her suitors are tenor Matthew Polenzani and baritone Mariusz Kwiecien, who sing the lilting duet “Au fond du temple saint,” which opera fans know and adore. Director Penny Woolcock explores the timeless themes of pure love, betrayal, and vengeance in a production that vividly creates an undersea world on the stage of the Met. Conductor Gianandrea Noseda brings his romantic flair to the lush score from the composer of Carmen.
     
     
    Tickets on sale Friday, July 24

  • MET OPERA: Turandot (Encore)

    Nina Stemme, one of opera’s greatest dramatic sopranos, takes on the title role of the proud princess of legendary China. Tenor Marco Berti is Calàf, the brave prince who sings “Nessun dorma” and wins her hand. Franco Zeffirelli’s golden production is conducted by Paolo Carignani.

    Tickets on sale Friday, July 24

  • MET OPERA: Manon Lescaut (Encore)

    The Met stage ignites when soprano Kristine Opolais and tenor Roberto Alagna join forces in Puccini’s obsessive love story. Opolais sings the title role of the country girl who transforms herself into a Parisian temptress, while Roberto Alagna is the dashing student who desperately woos her. Director Richard Eyre places the action in occupied France in a film noir setting. “Desperate passion” is the phrase Puccini himself used to describe the opera that confirmed his position as the preeminent Italian opera composer of his day. Met Principal Conductor Fabio Luisi leads the stirring score.

  • MET OPERA: Madama Butterfly (Encore)

    Anthony Minghella’s breathtaking production has thrilled audiences ever since its premiere in 2006. One of the world’s foremost Butterflys, soprano Kristine Opolais, takes on the title role, and Roberto Alagna sings Pinkerton, the naval officer who breaks Butterfly’s heart. Karel Mark Chichon conducts.

    Tickets on sale Friday, July 24

  • MET OPERA: Roberto Devereux (Encore)

    Soprano Sondra Radvanovsky takes on the extraordinary challenge of singing all three of Donizetti’s Tudor queens in the course of a single season, a rare feat made famous by Beverly Sills—and not attempted on a New York stage since. In this climactic opera of the trilogy, directed by Sir David McVicar, she plays Queen Elizabeth I, forced to sign the death warrant of the nobleman she loves, Roberto Devereux. Tenor Matthew Polenzani is Devereux, and mezzo-soprano Elīna Garanča and baritone Mariusz Kwiecien complete the principal quartet in the bel canto masterpiece, conducted by Donizetti specialist Maurizio Benini.

    Tickets on sale Friday, July 24

  • MET OPERA: Elektra (Encore)

    The genius director Patrice Chéreau (From the House of the Dead) didn’t live to see his great Elektra production, previously presented in Aix and Milan, make it to the stage of the Met. But his overpowering vision lives on with soprano Nina Stemme—unmatched today in the heroic female roles of Strauss and Wagner—who portrays Elektra’s primal quest for vengeance. Legendary mezzo-soprano Waltraud Meier is chilling as Elektra’s fearsome mother, Klytämnestra. Soprano Adrianne Pieczonka and bass Eric Owens are Elektra’s troubled siblings. Chéreau’s musical collaborator, Esa-Pekka Salonen, conducts.

    Tickets on sale Friday, July 24

  • Broadway’s Next H!t Musical

    Every song is fresh.
    Every scene is new.

    Every night is different.
    It’s all improvised and it’s all funny.
     
    The New York Times calls Broadway’s Next H!T Musical “Hilarious!” Time Out NY says “At last! A musical of, for, and by the people.”



    The hilarious Broadway’s Next H!T Musical is the only unscripted theatrical awards show. Master improvisers gather made up, hit song suggestions from the audience and create a spontaneous evening of music, humor, and laughter. The audience votes for its favorite song and watches as the cast turns it into a full-blown improvised musical – complete with memorable characters, witty dialogue, and plot twists galore. BNHM has been seen recently at The Triad, Tribeca Film Festival, and at the New York Musical Theater Festival, among many others.

    For more info:

    http://www.broadwaysnexthitmusical.com/

  • Indian Ink’s The Elephant Wrestler

    “Generous spirited… I came out feeling rejuvenated as well as entertained” – Sydney Morning Herald

    The contradictions of modern India with its iPhones and ancient gods come alive in this outrageously funny and heartbreakingly beautiful romantic thriller. A poor chaiwallah (tea seller) has his life changed forever when a young girl is abandoned at a busy railway station and brings the place to a standstill with the beauty of her singing. With a few well-chosen words, actor and playwright Jacob Rajan paints a rich visual tableaux full of arresting detail and displays a remarkable ability to dive into the emotional heart of an ever-changing parade of characters.

    Indian
    Ink Theatre Company has become one of New Zealand’s most successful touring theatre companies performing in every major New Zealand theatre and city since 1997. The company blends western theatrical traditions with eastern flavors and has been critically acclaimed for its use of live music, heightened theatricality, humor, pathos and great storytelling.

    This engagement of Indian Ink Theatre Company is funded through the Mid Atlantic Tours program of Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation with support from the National Endowment for the Arts. For more information visit www.midatlanticarts.org

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  • ART NOW: Eric Barry Drasin and Phillip David Stearns

    Demonstration: 4:30 pm Rechnitz Hall room 216

    Artist Lecture: 6:00 pm Wilson Auditorium

    Eric Barry Drasin is a Brooklyn-based artist, musician and curator working at the intersection of digital media, performance and installation. Rooted in the Expanded Cinema tradition, his work explores the relationship between composition, interface, performance, score, and synesthetic audiovisual systems.

    Eric Barry Drasin’s website

    Phillip David Stearns is also based in Brooklyn. His work is centered on the use of electronic technologies and electronic media to explore dynamic relationships between ideas and material. Deconstruction, reconfiguration, and extension are key methodologies and techniques employed in the production of works that range from audio visual performances, electronic sculptures, light and sound installation, digital textiles, and other oddities both digital and material. 

    Phillip David Stearn’s website

    Eric and Phil will give a joint artist lecture as well as lead a demonstration of their tools and techniques.

  • Visiting Writer: Ed Hirsch

    Edward Hirsch, a MacArthur Fellow, has published nine books of poems, including The Living Fire: New and Selected Poems (2010), which brings together thirty-five years of work, and Gabriel: A Poem (2014), a book-length elegy that The New Yorker called “a masterpiece of sorrow.”  He has also written five prose books, among them A Poet’s Glossary (2014), a complete compendium of poetic terms, and How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry (1999), a national bestseller.  He has received numerous awards and fellowships, including the National Book Critics Circle Award, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Literature.  He taught in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Houston for seventeen years.  He now serves as president of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

    More information: www.edwardhirsch.com