Boston Lyric Opera presents:

Macbeth by Giuseppe Verdi 

 

Verdi, master of passionate musical excitement and creator of many of the most vivid characters in opera, slams into Shakespeare, master of almost unbearable dramatic tension and unrivalled in plumbing the depths of psychological portraiture.

The result: Macbeth- bold, terrifying, hypnotic, gripping. Music Director David Angus will lead BLO's esteemed orchestra and chorus while David Schweizer returns to BLO after last season's highly successful The Emperor of Atlantis. American soprano Carter Scott, fresh from The Lyric Opera of Chicago, debuts as Lady Macbeth. The cast features Metropolitan Opera baritone Daniel Sutin, making his BLO debut as Macbeth, bass-baritone Darren K. Stokes as Banquo (Carmen, 2009;Midsummer, 2011), and celebrated Met tenor Richard Crawley as Macduff. With David Cushing, John Irvin and Michelle Trainor.

Sung in Italian New Production

 

 Click here for additional information.

 

Once Upon a Time...Sergio Leone

  

Precious few foreign artists have so thoroughly reappropriated an American cultural idiom as to make it entirely their own - the feat brilliantly achieved by Italian director Sergio Leone (1929-89) who revolutionized the Western, and later the gangster film, into deeply personal statements about history, memory and cultural mythology. A Proto-Pop artist, Leone transformed the widescreen canvas into bold collages drawing with ironic sincerity from the cinema, popular culture, history and religion. Although he directed only seven features, Leone has exerted an immeasurable influence upon the American and world cinema, with his signature bravura style ceaselessly quoted by directors from around the world - from Tarantino and Scorsese to Kusturica, Miike and Woo.

 

Endlessly studied and discussed, Leone's work is actually quite difficult to see. For the full dimensions of Leone's operatic vision of the past is best - and arguably only -understandable on the widescreen and with the type of excellent archival prints gathered for this exclusive HFA retrospective.

  

 Click here for more information and for the complete calendar.

Visions of Liszt festival: 

Liszt and the Sound of Italy, 

a lecture-recital by Kenneth Hamilton

 

Scottish pianist and author Kenneth Hamilton plays a program of Liszt's Italy-themed compositions, and discusses how they relate to the works of art and literature that inspired them.

 

Program:

Sposalizio

Petrarch Sonnet no. 104

After a Reading of Dante ("Dante" Sonata)

Hans von Bülow, Dante's Sonnet (as transcribed by Liszt)

St Francis Walking on the Waves

 

Kenneth Hamilton a Scottish pianist and writer, known for his virtuoso performances of Romantic music, especially Liszt, Alkan and Busoni. His widely read book After the Golden Age: Romantic Pianism and Modern Performance (Oxford University Press, 2008) discusses the differences between the past and the present in concert life and playing styles. He is a Professor of Music at the University of Birmingham and is known to listeners of the BBC as a witty and engaging commentator on classical music and performance.

 

The year 2011 marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Franz Liszt, the Hungarian-born composer and piano virtuoso best known for such pieces as Les Préludes, Liebestraum no. 3, the Hungarian Rhapsodies, and the Sonata in B-minor. The Brown University Music Department is holding a series of events - including a film screening, a master class, a lecture-recital, and a symposium - to commemorate his music and achievements.

 

This festival is generously supported by the Creative Arts Council, the Peterson Concert Fund, the Department of Music, and the Cogut Center for the Humanities, with additional support from the Departments of History of Art and Architecture, Italian Studies, Slavic Languages, and Comparative Literature.

 

Cost: Free

Contact: Music Department 401-863-3234

Thursday, November 17 at starting at 10.00am until 5.30pm at Harvard University - Center for European Studies - 27 Kirkland Street, Cabot Way, Cambridge 

Recovery, Investment for Growth and Fiscal Sustainability

Organized by the Italian Cultural Institute of New York and theMinda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies (Harvard University) with the support of  the Presidency of the Council of Ministries of Italy and in collaboration with Fondazione Rosselli of Turin, the conference will discuss the current financial situations in both Europe and the Unites States. 
Unprecedented policy measures taken by major economies have limited the downturn of the economic and financial crisis and spurred recovery. However, at the global level, emerging markets are registering much stronger economic growth rates compared to industrialized economies, where weaknesses and uncertainty persist. Major developed economic areas, notwithstanding different economic outlooks, face similar challenges in terms of increasing public debt and the need for fiscal consolidation while ensuring job creation and a sustained growth path in the medium run. 
The conference will expand  on these ideas and more.

Registration required for the event: [email protected]
Free of charge

Click here for additional information.  

Thursday, November 17, 1.00pm to 2.00pm at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston 

MFA Gallery Talk: 

Love and Marriage in Renaissance Italy

 

Gallery Talk given by Marietta Cambrareri, Curator of Decorative Arts and Sculpture and Jetskalina H. Phillips Curator of Judaica, Art of Europe. We will be focusing on objects used to celebrate betrothal, marriage, birth, and family life in Italy, giving a sense of the material world of the Renaissance home.

1:00 pm - 2:00 pm Sharf Visitor Center

Admission Free with Admission - No Ticket RequiredThis event is free with cost of admission.

 

Juan Pons stars in Nabucco, live from the Teatro Antico, Taormina, Italy, in this four-act opera, Verdi's third and the work that permanently established his reputation as a composer.

Since its construction in the 7th century B.C., the Teatro Antico's audiences have watched performances with Mt. Etna and the Ionia Sea as a stunning backdrop for the theatre's arena stage. The theatre (also called the Greek Theatre) is home to the annual summer Taormina Arte festival.

First performed at La Scala in 1842, the Biblically based story follows the plight of the Jews as they are assaulted, conquered and exiled from their homeland by the Babylonian king Nabucco (in English, Nebuchadnezzar).

Performance Date August 9, 2011

Cast Nabucco - Juan Pons Ismaele - Massimiliano Chiarolla Zaccaria - Francesco E. D'Artegna Abigaille - Chiara Taigi Fenena - Eufemia Tufano

Conductor Pier Giorgio Morandi

Director Enrico Castiglione.

Sunday October 2, until February 12, 2012 at the Museum of Science in Boston 

A Day in Pompei

On August 24, AD 79, Mount Vesuvius erupted, burying the ancient Roman city of Pompeii under volcanic ash for over 1,700 years. On Sunday, October 2, 2011, visitors to the Museum of Science, Boston will explore the life and death of this thriving city in A Day in Pompeii. The 13,000-square-foot touring exhibit immerses visitors in the richness of one of the greatest archaeological treasures ever unearthed.

On exhibit October 2, 2011 - February 12, 2012, A Day in Pompeii features over 250 priceless artifacts. They include 13 wall-sized frescoes, over a dozen pieces of gold jewelry, marble and bronze statuary, gold coins, and other dazzling examples of ancient Roman artistry. Other artifacts from frying pans, fishhooks, and merchants' scales to ceramics, oil lamps, graffiti stones, and carbonized bread capture aspects of daily life. Visitors can also experience the power of volcanoes from interactive displays and learn about their victims by exploring the body casts that have immortalized them.

"Few ancient cities have been found so unchanged," says Paul Fontaine, Museum of Science vice president of education. "Our visitors will discover that what a volcano destroys it can also save. The clues that scientists and archeologists have uncovered, while helping establish modern archeology, also offer a glimpse of ancient life, from art and architecture to water engineering and entertainment, revealing remarkable ties between ancient and modern cultures. And in a very personal way, the body casts connect us directly to human beings who lived 2,000 years ago."

 

Click here for additional information about the exhibit.