T+L’s Global Guide to Arts & Culture

New York

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof Broadhurst Theatre (opens March 6; 212/239-6200; cat2008onbroadway.com). Tennessee Williams’s drama of unrequited and misplaced passions is presented with an African-American cast that includes James Earl Jones (Big Daddy), Phylicia Rashad (Big Mama), and Anika Noni Rose as the implacable Maggie the Cat.

• South Pacific Vivian Beaumont Theatre (opens Apr. 3, 212/239-6200; lct.org). Bartlett Sher, who staged Lincoln Center Theater’s hit Light in the Piazza, returns to the company to direct the Rodgers & Hammerstein musical. Kelli O’Hara stars as Nellie Forbush, joined by Brazilian baritone Paulo Szot in the role of Emile de Becque.
• Endgame Brooklyn Academy of Music (April 25–May 18; 718/636-4100; bam.org). John Turturro takes on the virtuoso role of the aged, blind, wheelchair-bound minister Hamm who struggles to accept the vagaries of life’s end in Samuel Beckett’s one-act play.
• Les Liaisons Dangereuses, at the American Airines Theatre (opens May 1; 212/719-1300; roundabouttheatre.org). Laura Linney returns to Broadway as the scheming Marquise de Merteuil in Christopher Hampton’s dark comedy set among the decadent aristocracy of pre-Revolutionary France. Ben Daniels, as the Vicomte de Valmont, is her worthy adversary.

Reported by Leslie Camhi, Raul Barreneche, Bill Rosenfield, Anne Midgette, Robert Greskovic, Julia Houlihan, Stirling Kelso, Bree Sposato, and Mario R. Mercado.

Munich

Munich Biennale 2008 (April 17–May 3; 49-89/5481-8181; muenchenerbiennale.de). In 1988, the composer Hans Werner Henze founded an ambitious festival entirely devoted to premieres of operas by little-known composers. Twenty years later, the festival continues under the former Salzburg Festival chief Peter Ruzicka. This year, composers Enno Poppe, Klaus Lang, Carola Bauckholt, and Jens Joneleit offer four unusual works. Elsewhere in Munich, the Cuvilliés Theater, a tiny Baroque jewel that was saved from World War II bombing by quick-thinking officials who packed up and stored its exquisite interior only a few weeks before the building in which it had been housed suffered a direct hit. Reassembled after the war, the theater, an auxiliary branch of the Bavarian State Opera, has now undergone a lengthy restoration. It reopens in June with the opera that had its world premiere there in 1781, Mozart’s Idomeneo (June 14–July 6; 49-89/2185-1920; staatsoper.de), conducted by Kent Nagano.

Zurich

Clari Zurich Opera (May 23–31; 41-44/268-666; opernhaus.ch). The Zurich Opera is known for presenting many new productions each season (a mind-boggling 16 this year), which means it can lure big stars by offering them unusual repertory—like this Halévy opera few people today have even heard of. It is being staged for soprano Cecilia Bartoli, a frequent performer at the opera house, who is currently exploring the legacy of the singer Maria Malibran, for whom this work was written 180 years ago; this first-ever Swiss performance of the piece will be conducted by the fine Adam Fischer.

Amsterdam

La Commedia The Netherlands Opera (June 12–18; 31-20/625-5455; dno.nl). Put the European minimalist composer Louis Andriessen together with the indie film director Hal Hartley and Dante’s Divine Comedy and you have what promises to be one of the major music events of the year. This “film opera,” premiered by some of the best musicians in the business—Reinbert de Leeuw leads the Asko and Schoenberg ensembles—is likely to have the spark so many new operas lack, thanks to Andriessen’s forceful, aggressive, and quirky music.

New York

The New York Festival of Song (Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall; March 11, 13; nyfos.org). One of the city’s cultural treasures celebrates its 20th anniversary with two commissioned comic operas from American composers John Musto and William Bolcom, both with librettos by Mark Campbell. Each work is scored for five singers and two pianos and will be led by visionary co-founders and pianists Michael Barrett and Steven Blier.

New Orleans

The city’s music heritage is legendary. Jazz Fest, the annual confluence of established and emerging jazz artists takes place April 25–27 and May 1–4 (nojazzfest.com). Less well known but influential is the Ponderosa Stomp, April 29–30 (ponderosastomp.com), which investigates the roots of rock-n-roll, rhythm and blues, country, funk, as well as jazz, and the musicians that were fundamental to the scene. Attendees will be treated to a performance by Barbara Lynn, whose “Oh Baby (We Got a Good Thing Goin’)” the Rolling Stones made world famous with their 1965 cover. Jazz lovers should not leave town without the Hurricane Sessions, recordings bythe Preservation Hall Jazz Band from the 70’s and 80’s as well as new work that were rescued after Hurricane Katrina.

Washington

Tamerlano Washington National Opera (Apr. 30–May 22). Plácido Domingo once said he wanted to focus more on Baroque opera; this season, he is finally delivering on his promise with not one but two Baroque parts. Following Gluck’s Iphigénie at the Met in November, he is taking on the 126th new role of his career as the Ottoman emperor Bajazet, imprisoned by the Tamerlano of David Daniels, in this early Handel opera.

Fort Worth

After more than 60 years of presenting opera throughout the cultural season, the Fort Worth Opera (May 16–June 8; 877/396-7372; fwopera.org) changed to a festival format in 2007. This spring offers the first major U.S. production of Peter Eötvös’s Angels in America, based on Tony Kushner’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play. Also in repertory are Puccini’s Turandot, Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, and Of Mice and Men by American composer Carlisle Floyd. The adaptation of Steinbeck’s classic novel about two migrant farm workers and a fateful act and its consequences stars baritone Phillip Addis as George and tenor Anthony Dean Griffey in the heartrending role of Lennie.

St. Louis

Opera Theatre of Saint Louis (May 24–June 29; 314/961-0644; opera-stl.org). Opera in English is the hallmark of this renowned opera festival—works translated from French and Italian, respectively, in the case of this summer’s Tales of Hoffmann and Madame Butterfly, or in the original language, in the case of William Walton’s rarely heard 1954 Troilus and Cressida. The fourth opera this season, Martin y Soler’s Una Cosa Rara, with a libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte, was a huge hit in its day, but today is chiefly remembered for being briefly quoted in the last act of Don Giovanni.

Reported by Leslie Camhi, Raul Barreneche, Bill Rosenfield, Anne Midgette, Robert Greskovic, Julia Houlihan, Stirling Kelso, Bree Sposato, and Mario R. Mercado.

Copenhagen

Hot Hot Hot Royal Danish Theatre (May 8–15; kglteater.dk). The Royal Danish Ballet presents an international bill of fare in programs from three choreographers: premieres by Israeli Ohad Naharin and the Englishman Christopher Wheeldon, and the dynamic ballet by the Spaniard Nacho Duato, Coming Together, based on the Attica prison riots.

Miami

Miami City Ballet Adrienne Arscht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade (March 28–30; miamicityballet.org). Mystery surrounds the premiere of Nightspot, a collaboration between Twyla Tharp and Elvis Costello, the details of which are under wraps. After its premiere in Miami, the ballet will also be seen in Palm Beach and Ft. Lauderdale. Known quantities: 18 dancers, an onstange dance band, pit orchestra, and costumes designed by Isaac Mizrahi.

Reported by Leslie Camhi, Raul Barreneche, Bill Rosenfield, Anne Midgette, Robert Greskovic, Julia Houlihan, Stirling Kelso, Bree Sposato, and Mario R. Mercado.