Berkshire Eagle

This past weekend James Levine, artistic director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, was given rave reviews for opening the Tanglewood season with a two day concert peformance of the massive and magnificent Berlioz Opera "Les Troyens." It was learned today that Levine will undergo surgery this week. His remaining Tanglewood duties are cancelled but he hopes to be back to cover the opening of the BSO.

Tickets for the two James Taylor concerts on July 3 & 4 at Tanglewood sold out within hours of being put on sale. On Saturday evening the BSO summer residence offically opens with The Trojans (Part Two on Sunday afternooon) by Berlioz conducted by artistic director, James Levine. This past weekend during the Shoulder Season we attended perormances by the Mark Morris company and a broadcast of Prairie Home Companion.

Bob Dylan and Joan Baez put the funky Dreamaway-Lodge, hidden in the woods of Becket, Mass, on the map when they filmed it during the Rolling Thunder tour. Now it is a popular Berkshire destination for atmospheric family style dining and entertainment.

Gillian Jones is the chief photographer for the daily North Adams Transcript. Her photographs are presently on display at Papyri Books on Eagle Street in North Adams through the end of February.

The Boston Symphony Orchestra has announced its 2008 Tanglewood program with James Taylor celebrating the Fourth of July weekend and an even greater emphasis on opera but no great changes or surprises.

Now in its third year the North Adams Open Studios has grown to include twenty three venues and nearly a hundred individual artists.

The volunteers, the deficits, the sniping from the sidelines: You have to expect it when you are biggest target. The BSO's Berkshire summer of 2007 lends itself to parody, speculation and reminiscences.

Now in his sixth season Freddy Taylor has brought the annual Labor Day Weekend long Jazz Festival to venerable Tanglewood. Last night there was hot jazz wafting through the cool breeze.

With the court date in Springfield of Mass MoCA vs the artist Christoph Buchel reported as just a couple of weeks away we took a tour of the installation which remains under wraps, sortah.

It was sweltering last night as Keith Lockhart led the Boston Pops Orchestra and Tanglewood Chorus through a full concert version of the 1945 Rodgers and Hammerstein classic "Carousel." Predictably the perrenial favorite drew a capacity audience in the Koussevitsky Music Shed and out on the lawn.

A recent article and editorial in the Berkshire Eagle take Tanglewood to task for falling attendance. Dave Mathews and Bright Eyes to the rescue?

Reductions in staff and the firing of a senior highly respected reviewer, Peter G. Davis, by New York Magazine, reflect a worrisome trend.