What a last seven years it’s been for Peter Gelb and the Metropolitan Opera: Conflicts among board members and between labor and management; allegations of sexual abuse against late music director James Levine; COVID furloughs that left orchestra members in serious financial trouble; the firing of Anna Netrebko over her refusal to denounce Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine. Jeffrey Arlo Brown sat down with Gelb to talk about those issues, plus Gelb's aesthetic priorities for the Met and whether he has a secret Twitter account.

The work of Michel Andreenko, a Ukrainian émigré modernist painter and stage designer, is featured in two exhibits at the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art. The main exhibit in the West Gallery—Michel Andreenko: Revisited—is a career survey, almost a retrospective, of the artist’s work from the 1920s through the 1970s. The parallel exhibit—Michel Andreenko and Ukrainian Artists in Paris—focuses on the work of Andreenko and his fellow artists who moved to Paris to escape Russia. The exhibits, postponed for two years due to the pandemic, are curated by Adrienne Kochman, UIMA curator.

HallSpace  presents recent sculpture and paintings by Joe Caruso. This body of work was sparked by Caruso's interest in power figures and art forms that enable human beings to find their connections to the spiritual world. It all started out while he was walking through an outdoor flea market in Paris, and he discovered a small African sculpture from Benin. 

After a six week run at Geffen Playhouse MAN OF GOD written by Anna Ouyang Moench and directed by Maggie Burrows has launched the three play season for the Williamstown Theatre Festival. Four Korean American teen girls are confined to a Bangkok hotel room during a field trip with their Pastor. It appears that he is a voyeur and predator. Once outed the comedy entails fantasy acts of revenge.

On Saturday, July 23 at 3 pm, the Clark Art Institute hosts a performance by acclaimed Jacob’s Pillow alumnus Jonah Bokaer. The choreographer and visual artist performs a solo choreography inspired by Auguste Rodin’s sculpture, Fallen Angel.

Although still on its maiden voyage, already Firehouse stands out as a Best in the Berkshires destination. We wish them success for the sake of all of us who enjoy fine dining.

The Clark Art Institute hosts an outdoor concert by Grammy award-winning folk musician Aoife O’Donovan on Tuesday, July 19 at 6 pm on the Clark’s South Lawn near the Reflecting Pool. An Irish-American singer-songwriter, O’Donovan quietly dazzles with intimate songs that feel big and bold.

Auberge du Soleil, Napa Valley’s quintessential adult getaway, and renowned local artist, Gordon Huether, today unveiled “L’Esprit du Soleil” (The Spirit of the Sun), a commissioned multi-panel art piece designed especially for the newly remodeled entrance to the award-winning hotel and its Michelin Star Restaurant.

The opening premise of the fiction is that Janet van de Graaf and Robert Martin, played by the charming and talented pair of Maeve Smith and Stephen Kanaski, are to be married on the day that the musical takes place.  The reality of the show’s evolution is that “The Drowsy Chaperone” began as a spoof of old musicals that was performed at a stag party for a real engaged couple with the same names as the characters in the show.  Got that?

Catching up recently with Sheffield based artist, Stephanie Blumenthal, she commented on having work in the last two annual juried shows of the Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield. They are photographs in the manner of 17th century Dutch still life paintings entailing fast food. I asked her to send images which proved to be intriguing.

This summer, the Cape Ann Museum presents a special exhibition of works by contemporary artist Vincent Castagnacci. Notes from a Quarry will focus on Castagnacci’s drawings and paintings from the mid-2000s to the present, pulling in earlier works that reflect the strong influence Cape Ann has had—and continues to have—on the artist.

Ian Bostridge is the go-to performer for Franz Schubert's Winterreise. He notes that 'Even as a child I was unnaturally obsessed with love and death, so in that sense I really was born to sing lieder'. This concert is another testament to his natural affinity for the form and for the composer.

The lavish and expensive-to-produce “Follies” earned 11 Tony nominations and won seven, but was a box office disappointment with barely 500 performances on Broadway.  Yet, the show became a classic.  San Francisco Playhouse has taken on the challenge of producing this massive and demanding project.  The result is a worthy rendition of a great American musical.

It has been a very warm week in Munich, yet a lovely one. Occasionally walking along Maximilian Street in the center of town, a breeze catches up and cools. The Munich State Opera, unquestionably the lead opera company in the world, is holding its annual July Festival, a chance to catch up with interesting productions from the last decade.Concerts too attract.  Munich Regular Jonas Kaufman will return for his first post Covid appearance.

David Hertzberg's opera, The Rose Elf, opened The Angel Space series, a collaboration between Unison Media and Green-Wood Cemetery. After whiskey amidst gravestones, the audience took a walk through the glorious grounds, where ancient trees are thick, tall and promising. The production in the Catacombs was thrilling.

Carnegie Hall ended its 2017-18 season Tuesday night with the last of three concerts featuring the MET Orchestra. This year, the pit band at the Metropolitan Opera has been playing under a succession of different conductors. This one was conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas.

Betrayal through informing is at the core of Athol Fugard’s masterful A Lesson from Aloes, one of several penetrating plays that earns the South African playwright a position in the pantheon of modern authors. First produced in 1980, the play is set in 1963, a full three decades before the end of apartheid. Weathervane Productions renders this classic with exceptional skill.

I didn’t think there were really any outstanding musical productions this season. By that I mean productions where the work itself and all elements of the production hit the mark. Most had flaws of some kind.

New Southern Florida theater company's production of Into The Woods is mostly a success. The director's approach suggests the innocence our youth has lost in the aftermath of tragedies. Mostly, this production leaves Into the Woods intact.

Peace for Mary Frances by Lily Thorne is produced by The New Group. It is in many ways a tough play, a domestic drama set during the final weeks of hospice at home. The cast featuring Lois Smith and J. Smith-Cameron is terrific.

Under the guise of the Red Scare, Senator Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), abrogated the rights of thousands of people. Their practice of denouncing their political opposites is little different from the same strategy used by the current presidency.

The author recently visited Cartagena, Colombia. The city is a 500-year old urban jewel in the Caribbean with a wonderful scaled and visually vibrant Old Town (el Centro Historico). It is a wonderful destination on the western edge of the Caribbean. Planning of Cartagena both in terms of preservation and new development is a challenge, but climate change and rising sea levels is threatening its cultural heritage.

Astrid Hiemer contributed 19 photo illustrations for my fifth book of gonzo poems Topsy Turvy. On Sunday of Labor Day weekend we collaborated for a reading and book launch at historic Bascom Lodge on Mt. Greylock. There was a nice turnout on the porch. Jose, Alvin, Rick and Art joined us for the jazz dinner that followed. We stayed the night and had breakfast with hikers. It was an adventure we need to have more often.

Despite occasional lineup changes, the band has always had a “Jay.” Even so, the original name that was bestowed upon them by the legendary songwriting and producing team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller did not use any of the bandmembers’ names. What's in a name? The vintage band is on tour this fall.

Connecticut is blessed with an abundance of fine professional theaters – from the major regional companies (Yale Rep, Long Wharf, Hartford Stage, Goodspeed, TheaterWorks, Westport Playhouse) to more locally oriented theaters (Ivoryton Playhouse, Playhouse on Park in West Hartford, Connecticut Repertory Theater at UConn, Sharon Playhouse, Seven Angels in Waterbury, MTC in Norwalk and ACT-CT in Ridgefield). Plus there are the major presenting house that bring in national tours – the Bushnell in Hartford, Shubert in New Haven and the Palace in Waterbury.