TAP Airlines cares about their country and customers. Somewhat like a tourism company, TAP prepares you for a Portuguese experience starting 40,000 feet above the earth. Fine Portuguese wines are paired with dishes designed by Michelin Star Chefs. There are videos that educate the viewer about the Portuguese experience.

Since the 1980s, the artist Rafael Mahdavi has been a colleague and friend. For many years, in addition to painting, photography and sculpture, he has been writing. Recently, he published a second book Villa Dolores a memoir of childhood and adolescence with another volume, already written to follow. He is also revisiting, editing and preparing for publication several novels. This memoir is relatively brief, just 173 pages, but compact , polished, explosively evocative and poetic. I took my time reading brief chapters of two or three pages. Each was a distilled and detailed anecdote, some horrific in nature, that flowed like an intimate conversation.

One of my favorite wineries in Italy, Tinazzi, is actually two wineries. One near Lake Garda and the other is in the boot of Italy, in Puglia. Both wineries are family run and produce affordable wines.

The Book of Mormon's messages about belief and religion resonate particularly strongly these days.Triple threat actors on national tour of musical are performing in Miami.

RMA’s Soft Thresholds is about opening up physical boundaries: an elephant village is one of a number of the firm’s marvelous examples of this commitment. Soft Thresholds: a RMA Architects exhibition in Gund Hall Gallery at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, Cambridge, MA closed October 15 but left lasting memories. An elephant never forgets.

The 2017 TAP Wine Tour culminated with visits to the regions of Portugal which produced the winning wines for TAP's 2018 flights. Choosing to promote Portugal through its fine cuisines, with five Michelin-starred chefs, and the best quality Portuguese wines as determined by a panel of wine experts, TAP hosted over 50 journalists to visit the winning areas.

What a wonderful way to taste Chiaretto, Italy's rosé wine. At one vineyard, the Valetti Vineyard, a family run vineyard in Italy's Lake Garda district, the opportunity arose to sample Valetti's Chiaretto side by side with Cristiana's organic Bardolino Chiaretto. Both wineries produce classic chiaretto.

Fool for Love is one of Sam Shepard's most respected works, and the cast of the San Jose Stage production extracts every bit of meaning and emotion from it.

Brad Smith, a fellow traveler in the TAP Wine Tour is a port authority, reaconteur and comedian. It was a non stop flow of information, insights and humor as we paired up for day trips first in Lisbon and then during the following weekend in Porto. The experience evoked hints of apricot, explosions of flavor, with an aftertaste of Dante and Poe.

There are several distinctions that mark this wonderful material. The 1980 stage show is based on the 1933 movie of the same name, which was the seminal film on this topic. As hard as it is to believe, a filmed musical had never been successfully transferred to the stage. This one succeeded wildly with critics, winning the Tony for Best Musical and more.

Everything about the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s second installment in David Pountney's new Ring cycle feels, sounds and looks right. Yet starting with the singing actors’ performances seems only fair. They are superb, one and all. Surely one element of opera under the control of producers is the uniform quality of singing. The Lyric Opera understands this deeply and delivers.

TAP Airline of Portugal re-brands and becomes the largest promoter of Portugal in the world. Led by Abilio Martins, VP, of TAP, the airline has invested for the future resulting in great results since 2015. Marketing Portugal through its fine wine and cuisine is an important part of its new image.

Famed sex therapist Dr. Ruth warmly welcomes us into her home in an impressive South Florida production. The play by Mark St. Germaine premiered at Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield.The Broadway actress Anne O'Sullivan impressively inhabits the role.

Not getting any younger Sandy and Gerry Katz treated themseles to a week at The Row in the heart of NY's theatre district. From there were short cab rides to all the hit shows from Hamilton and Come from Away. They ejoyed events of American Theatre Criics Assocation inncluding the traiditional lunch with the stars at Sardis.

For its annual TAP Gala the Portuguese airline pulled out all the stops. It was a spectacular evening of food, drink, awards and entertanment. There were some 350 VIP guests assembled in a vast Porto warehouse. The event ran well past midnight ending with a performance by renowned Fado singer, Ana Moura.

After a forty year renovation, Vigneti Villabella has transformed into a viable member of the Relaix & Chateaux World Class Hotel group. The property is in the middle of a sustainable vineyard that overlooks Lake Garda, less then an hour from bustling Verona.

Concluding the TAP Wine Tour after three days and many tastings I'm now a fan and convert. ASAP I plan to find a case of the Alvarinho style of white wine. Hopefully it will evoke ecotic memories of ancient quintas and elegant gourmet meal pairings. Even the best trips, however, have their challenges and pratfalls.

The theater world was abuzz with West Side Story in the summer of 1957. It was to open on Broadway in the fall, and sure to be a smash hit. That was the word. It was also going to revolutionize musical theater. It did. Now the LA Philharmonic performs the score live as the film rolls on before the audience.

Rose wine sales have been growing in double figures during the past three years. Provence rose has led the way in sales worldwide, with many countries following. Italy will now enter the marketplace with Chiaretto, a rose made with red grapes.

By day two of the TAP Wine Tour we were locked into an endurance marathon. We tasted the wines of several regions; the Alentejo, Dao and Douro. Off schedule by two hours we arrived after dark at the venerable and ancient Quinta do Bomfim Symington. After a long hard day I passed on a late dinner that ended at 1:30 AM. The extra sleep helped to get back on track for the third and final day of the program which ended in Porto.

The wine tasting officially started in the late morning on the terrace of Quinta da Alorna. Some dozen or so wines later, after an elegant lunch, we flew to another region and Esporao. There was a third tasting and dinner at Monte da Ravasquaira. It was lights out at 2 AM then back on the bus at 9 AM. It was a pace that continued for the three day TAP Wine Tour.

The play is a riff on Der Freischütz, (The Freeshooter) a Germanic tale made most famous by the seminal German Romantic opera of the same name, composed in 1821 by Carl Maria von Weber. Black Rider is a trip by William S. Burroughs with Music by Tom Waits

Subject matter when John Adams and Peter Sellars double team always arrests. 'Nixon in China' is particularly memorable as China continues to open. 'The Death of Klinghofer' is important as we allow madmen to be called terrorists. In 'Dr. Atomic', the most mememorable moment is Gerald Finley's singing of the John Donne poem, an exquisite and tortured moment in the life of this complicated physicist who helped launch the new nuclear world in Los Alamos. Now we have 'Girls of the Golden West' in San Francisco. Puccini never imagined anything like this!

Dimitri Hvorostovsky was at the forefront of a generation of singers that, in the 1990s, invigorated the opera houses of the West when they left the recently collapsed Soviet Union. His U.S. debut came in 1993 in a Lyric Opera of Chicago production of La Traviata. His first role at the Met was as Yeletsky in 1995, a role he would sing eight times that season. He died in London at the age of 55.

In mid November there was glorious, summer-like weather during the TAP Wine Tour. We were among 70 journalists from the States, Europe and Brazil. Over three days of bus and airplane hops we visited the major regions and quintas or estates in Portugal. Even for experienced food/ wine/ travel writers this was a rare opportunity. There were four daily vineyards or tasting rooms with several wines at each stop as well as five paired with gourmet meals for lunch and dinner. This is a report on day one, a Monday, which previewed the launch of the three day tour that ended with a TAP Gala in Porto.