John Adams News

Paper Mill Playhouse has announced casting for its winter comedy, Christopher Durang's Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike. This touching and wickedly hysterical Tony Award-winning best play features Broadway, television and film veterans: Philippe Bowgen (Spike), Gina Daniels (Cassandra), Carolyn McCormick (Masha), Mark Nelson (Vanya), Michele Pawk (Sonia) and Jamie Ann Romero (Nina). Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike will be directed by Don Stephenson. Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike will run eight times a week at the Millburn, New Jersey, theater from January 21 through February 15, 2015. The official press opening night is Sunday, January 25, at 7:00pm. Paper Mill Playhouse's 2014-2015 Season is sponsored by Investors Bank.

Renée Fleming will add a new role to her extensive repertory when she sings her first-ever performances of Hanna Glawari, the title role in Lehár's The Merry Widow, at the Met this season. Four-time Tony Award winner Susan Stroman makes her Met debut as director and choreographer of a new production of the comic operetta, in which a wealthy widow's countrymen launch a romantic plot to keep her -- and her tax dollars -- within their borders.

From the home city of manned spaceflight, the Houston Symphony announced today that it has released The Earth-An HD Odyssey on DVD and Blu-ray. The Earth-An HD Odyssey is the highly anticipated second installment of the Symphony's groundbreaking HD Odyssey film trilogy and Music Director Andres Orozco-Estrada's first recording release with the Houston Symphony. This DVD/Blu-ray release follows the world premiere live performance of The Earth-An HD Odyssey in February of 2012 at Jones Hall.

Diavolo - Architecture in Motion, returns to Houston Friday, Jan. 9, 2015, at 8 p.m., in Jones Hall, presented by Society for the Performing Arts.

Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (LACO) highlights the beauty and majesty of the harpsichord with an unusual program featuring four harpsichords and chamber orchestra in the first of its Baroque Conversations series tonight, December 11, 2014, 7 pm, at Zipper Hall in downtown Los Angeles, which repeats on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 7:30 pm, when the Orchestra makes its debut at the Valley Performing Arts Center in Northridge.

From the home city of manned spaceflight, the Houston Symphony announced today that it has released The Earth-An HD Odyssey on DVD and Blu-ray. The Earth-An HD Odyssey is the highly anticipated second installment of the Symphony's groundbreaking HD Odyssey film trilogy and Music Director Andrés Orozco-Estrada's first recording release with the Houston Symphony. This DVD/Blu-ray release follows the world premiere live performance of The Earth-An HD Odyssey in February of 2012 at Jones Hall.

Continuing a tradition inaugurated in 2006, the Met will offer a holiday presentation this December and January: an English-language performance of an opera, with special weekday matinees and discount pricing designed to make the Met affordable for families with children. This year's production, Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel, opens December 18 and will star Aleksandra Kurzak, Heidi Stober, and Andriana Chuchman as Gretel; Christine Rice and Jennifer Johnson Cano as Hansel; Michaela Martens and Dwayne Croft as Gertrude and Peter, the wayward children's parents; and Robert Brubaker as the wicked Witch who captures them. Sir Andrew Davis will conduct all seven performances of the opera, which plays through January 8. There will be special weekday matinees at 11 a.m. on December 23 and December 30.

OPERA NEWS Editor in Chief F. Paul Driscoll today announced the recipients of the 10th Annual Opera News Awards. This year's honorees—Piotr Beczala, Ferruccio Furlanetto, Sondra Radvanosky, Samuel Ramey and Teresa Stratas—will be feted at a black tie gala celebration on Sunday, April 19, 2015 at the Plaza Hotel in New York City. Previous Opera News Award Winners Martina Arroyo,Gerald Finley and Susan Graham are among the presenters.

American tenor Jay Hunter Morris will replace Anthony Dean Griffey in Houston Grand Opera's world premiere production of A Christmas Carol, it was announced today by HGO Artistic and Music Director Patrick Summers. Mr. Griffey has withdrawn for health reasons. The 90-minute opera, commissioned by HGO from composer Iain Bell and librettist Simon Callow, is written for a single singer performing the role of The Narrator. A Christmas Carol runs from tonight, December 5 through 21, 2014, at the Wortham Theater Center, and is suitable for ages 12 and up.

Flexible in size and repertory, and dedicated to transforming the concert experience, The Knights have been hailed as 'the next generation of classical music' (Performance Todayhost Fred Child). Now, marking their debut as exclusive Warner Classics artists, the ground beneath our feet epitomizes the very qualities that set the trailblazing New York orchestral collective apart.

The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra presents Symphonie fantastique this weekend, November 29-30, 2014 at the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts.

Adding a final flourish to the holiday season, the Los Angeles Master Chorale, led by Artistic Director Grant Gershon, presents two concerts of Handel's Messiah on Wednesday, December 17, 7:30 pm, and Sunday, December 21, 2014, 7 pm, at Disney Hall. Featuring 40 members of the acclaimed chorus, orchestra and four gifted soloists from the Chorale's ranks, the concert provides the opportunity to hear this riveting oratorio - rich with soaring high notes, powerful bass, majestic brass and lush orchestrations - performed by what many critics consider to be the best chorus in the country. The soloists are Christina Bristow, soprano; Nike St. Clair, mezzo soprano; Arnold Livingston Geis, tenor; and Chung Uk Lee, baritone. Composed in a mere 24 days, Handel's 1741 English-language oratorio continues to be the composer's most popular work and may be the most performed classical work of all time.

Inspired by BroadwayWorld.com's Friday Six, welcome to BroadwayWorld Nashville's freshest installment of The Friday Five: five questions designed to help you learn more about the talented people you'll find onstage throughout the Volunteer state. This week's spotlight falls on Cumberland County Playhouse's legendary Jason Ross.

Juilliard Dance, under the direction of Lawrence Rhodes, opens its 2014-15 season in December with New Dances: Edition 2014 featuring four world premieres by innovative choreographers: Juilliard alumnus Austin McCormick (1st-Year Dancers); alumna Loni Landon (2nd-Year Dancers); Kate Weare (3rd-Year Dancers); and Larry Keigwin (4th-Year Dancers). Mr. Keigwin is returning to Juilliard where he previously choreographed and premiered, in December 2008, Runaway, a large-scale piece that riffs on the high fashion runway scene, and, in December 2009, Megalopolis.

The Los Angeles Master Chorale's holiday offerings continue with "Rejoice! A Cappella Christmas," showcasing the Chorale's astonishingly pure sound and exquisite balance in an all a cappella program that celebrates the 20th anniversary of former composer-in-residence/National Medal of Arts recipient Morten Lauridsen's monumental O Magnum Mysterium, on Sunday, December 14, 2014, 7 pm, at Walt Disney Concert Hall.

Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (LACO) highlights the beauty and majesty of the harpsichord with an unusual program featuring four harpsichords and chamber orchestra in the first of its Baroque Conversations series on Thursday, December 11, 2014, 7 pm, at Zipper Hall in downtown Los Angeles, which repeats on Saturday, December 13, 2014, 7:30 pm, when the Orchestra makes its debut at the Valley Performing Arts Center in Northridge.

The Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (LACO), an ardent champion of new music, presents the highly anticipated Los Angeles premiere of Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Aaron Jay Kernis' gripping and virtuosic Viola Concerto written for and featuring Paul Neubauer, considered one of the greatest violists of his generation, in two performances led by Music Director Jeffrey Kahane tonight, November 15, 2014, 8 pm, at Glendale's Alex Theatre, and Sunday, November 16, 2014, 7pm, at UCLA's Royce Hall.

On Sunday, November 23, 2014 at 8:00 p.m. The Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra, now in its 30th season, performs its first Severance Hall concert of the 2014-15 season. Brett Mitchell, in his second season as music director of the Youth Orchestra, conducts a program that opens with John Adams The Chairman Dances (Foxtrot for Orchestra), followed by Roy Harris Symphony No. 3. After intermission, the program concludes with Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4.