Pasadena’s A Noise Within theatre company, is staging a provocative and spirited comedy production of Shaw’s “Mrs. Warren’s Profession”, a witty play about the ‘world’s oldest profession’, or is it about something else that is masquerading for a more insidious subject matter discussion: the misogyny of men in a patriarchal society who harbor the fear of being exposed for their shortcomings.

Sir Antonio Pappano has made his mark at Royal Covent Garden over the past decade and a half. He is also the music director of the Orchestra dell' Accademia Nationale di Santa Cecilia (Rome). They return to Carnegie Hall after an almost half century absence. Pappano presented a work composer Salvatore Sciarrino wrote especially for the great and adventuresome soprano (and conductor) Barbara Hannigan. Mahler's Sixth Symphony followed.

L’Orchestre symphonique de Montréal is one of the finest symphonic ensembles in North America. They are a stellar symphonic ensemble with a long history and a sound all their own, combining precise European string playing with the lusty, leather-lunged brass one associated with this continent.

Strange Ladies greatest strength is its informativeness about the history of the movement, and additionally about the Occoquan Workhouse Prison, where public officials contrived to imprison and abuse some of the suffrage women.

This is a musical entertainment for the many, not a Sunday School lesson for the few.

The state of Maryland was named after Henrietta Maria of France, the queen consort of England, Scotland, and Ireland as the wife of King Charles I. Maryland is the only state in the United States whose judges wear red robes.

The Drowsy Chaperone offers good ole' escapist fare. Musical lovingly parodies shows from the Prohibition era. The Wick Theatre's production features high-octane, physical comedy and robust singing.

Puccini's "Tosca" remains one of the most popular operas in the world 117 years after its debut. Today with its portrait of fascist tyrants taking women forcibly for their own pleasure, it has renewed relevance. In her American debut Russian soprano Elena Stikhina made the role her own.

The Center for Contemporary Opera is presenting the premier of a pair of operas by Gordon Getty. One is based on Edgar Allan Poe’s The House of Usher. The other, on Oscar Wilde’s sympathetic take on a ghost who cannot die, poor guy.

Turandot is Giacomo Puccini’s final, unfinished work. It is a a grand fantasy of legendary China as reimagined through the lens of Italian romanticism. It is a farm tale, the story of an ice-hearted princess and the fearless Prince who wins her hand. It is seen (wrongly) as the end point of the genre of Italian opera. It is also, along with La bohème, the last of the Metropolitan Opera’s giant Franco Zeffirelli productions, crowded extravaganzas that evoke the opulence of a bygone era. (In this case, we’re talking about the 1980s.)

Listening to two great artists performing cello sonatas at Zankel Hall, you are let in on a secret that should be widely broadcast. In intimate chamber music, performed with only two instruments, you enter the deep, developed world of great composers whose work is the subject of conversation. Chorale to recitative, pluck to bowed, arpeggios to long, sweet lines. Never a moment to rest as we are pulled closer and closer to the essence of a composer.

The prestigious Musical America annual awards have been announced. The BSO musical director Andris Nelsons is artist of the year. Sondra Radvanovsky is vocalist. We interviewed Nelsons in 2011 before his first concert with the BSO at Carnegie Hall. Radvanofvsky has been on our radar since Peter Gelb tried to oust her and Placido Dominago stormed into his office and told him he could not remove an important artist from the Met roster.

Thomas Adès will be Artistic Partner to the Boston Symphony Orchestra for the next three years, helping to fill their Maestro's wish for abundant new music. Adès' gifts as a composer were on display in Zankel Hall. Principals from the cast of his third opera, about to have its North American premier, sang. The music, his own, and that of Schubert, Britten and Purcell among others, could count as the music of his friends, from long ago and now. As a pianist, Adès has a special touch.

The Last Rose of Summer and Minstrel Boy were written by Irish poet and lyricist Thomas Moore and are at the heart of the Irish soul. Satisfying direction by Charlotte Moore, undoubtedly a descendant, brings the poetry and music home in Brian Friel's "The Home Place."

A peculiar sense of existential dread hung over Wednesday night’s concert at Carnegie Hall, the first of the young season featuring the American Symphony Orchestra under the baton of its long time music director Leon Botstein. For this concert, titled “The Sounds of Democracy”, Botstein chose 20th century music by Leonard Bernstein, Roger Sessions and Aaron Copland, leading lights of American music in the last century but now largely ignored by the fast-food reality-television culture of the 21st.

“This is a classic case of confronting a well-organized, well-financed, misguided inside group, hoping to lead them to their better angels,” said Leslie Ferrin, founder of Save the Art. “That’s why we’re crowd-sourcing Save the Art’s legal action fund. We want to invite people to step up at whatever level they can, and say, “we support finding a better solution.”

Agostino Steffani (1653-1728) was important in his day, serving as a priest and diplomat as well as a composer, but he was forgotten after his death. The BEMF has devoted much of its attention to resuscitating his vocal works over the past 6 years. Its most recent research led to an enchanting concert of vocal duets, featuring local favorite Amanda Forsythe and colleagues from around the world.

The artists Norman Rockwell and Andy Warhol became rich and famous for giving the public what it wanted. It is this shared populism which is explored in an evocative exhibition at the Norman Rockwell Museum. Not surprisingly the exhibition has been mobbed with visitors.

Steppenwolf Theatre’s new production of Arthur Miller’s 1952 play, skillfully directed by Jonathan Berry, is a chilling allegory of the McCarthy era’s assault on freedom. Staged for the Steppenwolf for Young Adults series, the play pulls no punches in telling the story of guilt and accusation during the Salem witch trials.

A new production of The Sound of Music dusts off the cobwebs from classic musical .A vibrant company performs Rodgers and Hammerstein classic in national tour. Award-winning director Jack O'Brien's new production allows us to rediscover a classic.

The Song of the Nightingale is comprised of numerous clashes – the well being of the poor fishermen who must provide fish for the Emperor’s banquets versus the pleasure of Emperor; the needs of the Emperor’s sister who is the brains behind the administration versus the ego of the Emperor; and the young fisherman Xaio versus the girl that he loves, Mei, who aspires to higher goals and has been lifted from the fishing village to become a maid in the palace.

Languedoc ,in southern France, has gone from an over producer of bulk wine to a region thatcreates high quality wines with many blends that focus on grapes from the region.

We Shall Not Be Moved opened at the Apollo last weekend. Under the bright lights on the Apollo marquee on 125th Street in Harlem, the gathering crowd was dressed in high fashion, from tinsel and glitter to designer jeans and platform heels. Talk was all of the subject matter and the artists who had created this opera. Bill T. Jones is well-known, but the composer and librettist not so. People were going to see the work of their own community.

For community and school based fall programming Barrington Stage has revised the 1938 Patrick Hamilton play Gaslight. It's best know for its second of two film versions in 1944 which starred Ingrid Bergman, Charles Boyer, Joseph Cotton and the ingenue, Angela Lansberry as the frisky maid Nancy. The Barrington production, while well cast and crafted, given the zeitgeist and setting of the 1880s, is dark, somber and drab.

One can't overstate The Humans relevance to modern times. Stephen Karam's play is humorous, heartbreaking and creepy. The cast offers multi-dimensional performances in a first-rate production.