James F. Ingalls News

San Francisco Ballet's free weekly stream on SF Ballet @ Home features commissioned works from the 2018 Unbound festival and other notable ballets from SF Ballet's repertory. Every Friday, SF Ballet streams a complete ballet from its archives on Facebook, IGTV, YouTube, and the SF Ballet website.

How lucky we are to be living in the age of Mark Morris! My first thought watching San Francisco Ballet's opening night performance of their a?oeClassical (Re)Visiona?? program was a?oeGod, they're good!a?? SF Ballet presents a sparking and varied program of contemporary ballet that will leave you skipping down the steps of the Opera House on your way home.

The darker side of human nature is on display in DruidShakespeare: Richard III, a chilling story of power and ambition in a wickedly comic production from Ireland's Druid theater company and director Garry Hynes. The production stars Aaron Monaghan, who appeared as Estragon in Druid's acclaimed Waiting for Godot in the 2018 White Light Festival.

This production with the new translation is notably fresh and remarkably relevant. To WTF's Artistic Director, Mandy Greenfield's credit it is another excellent inclusion in a rich and diverse season. The language is contemporary and easy to follow, understand, and relate to. The subject matter, which includes religion, venereal disease, incest, and euthanasia, questions accepted social practices and norms. Possibly surprising the audience and most definitely stirring up debate. Where most regular tragedies deal mainly with the unhappy consequences of breaking the moral code, GHOSTS deals with the consequences of not breaking it. The parallels between the material written 138 years ago and events currently playing out in the US and across the world are stunning and undeniable.

Williamstown Theatre Festival announces additional casting and full creative teams for productions

The prestigious honor of performing the opening concerts of the 2019 Salzburg Festival in Austria on July 20 and 21 will be one highlight of the Los Angeles Master Chorale's Spring/Summer tour of its acclaimed production of Orlando di Lasso's Lagrime di San Pietro directed by Peter Sellars. The tour will feature 21 Master Chorale singers conducted by Grant Gershon, Kiki & David Gindler Artistic Director.

Artistic Director Helgi Tomasson and San Francisco Ballet today announced programming for the 2020 Repertory Season. Building on a heritage of commissioning groundbreaking dance from today's top choreographers, uncovering new choreographic talent, staging modern classics, and preserving the works that make up the canon of classic ballet, the 2020 Season places SF Ballet at the forefront of innovation and preeminence. Highlights include two new SF Ballet commissions by Cathy Marston and Trey McIntyre, and a co-commission with American Ballet Theatre of a work by Alexei Ratmansky; as well as works by George Balanchine, David Dawson, Harald Lander, Edwaard Liang, Benjamin Millepied, Mark Morris, Liam Scarlett, Helgi Tomasson, and Stanton Welch. The Season's three story ballets include Balanchine's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Wheeldon's Cinderella, and Tomasson's Romeo & Juliet.

Program 05, Lyric Voices, opens on March 27 at San Francisco Ballet with works that navigate the fine line between self-interest and self-obsession, and illuminate society's obsession with gadgets and devices. SF Ballet's Choreographer in Residence Yuri Possokhov's  “. . . two united in a single soul . . .” premieres during the triple-bill program, which runs through April 7 at SF War Memorial Opera House, and Christopher Wheeldon's Bound To and Trey McIntyre's Your Flesh Shall Be a Great Poem both return after their critical successes during 2018 Unbound: A Festival of New Works.

San Francisco Ballet (SF Ballet) opens Program 03, In Space & Time, on February 14, with performances through February 24 at SF War Memorial Opera House. In Space & Time includes Helgi Tomasson's The Fifth Season, called a masterful arrangement of overlapping shadows (San Francisco Chronicle); Harald Lander's Etudes, a 42-dancer study of how technique becomes art; and Cathy Marston's narrative Snowblind, a retelling of Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome, which returns after its premiere at Unbound: A Festival of New Works in 2018.

San Francisco Ballet opens Program 02, Kaleidoscope, on February 12, with performances through February 23 at SF War Memorial Opera House. Kaleidoscope features the SF Ballet premiere of Benjamin Millepied's Appassionata, and the returns of Justin Peck's Hurry Up, We're Dreaming, created for Unbound: A Festival of New Works in 2018, and George Balanchine's Divertimento No. 15.

With a formidable cast of three, and a brilliant ensemble of voices and instrumental musicians, Kaija Saariaho's ONLY THE SOUND REMAINS swept through town last weekend, created with director Peter Sellars. Once again, she left us in awe of how she can fill an impossibly large theatre with what seems on paper to be the tiniest of works.

In a desolate land lies a stone, shaped by waiting for who knows how long to a stool. A sad dying tree with three branches undulates. And a dry tableau of firmament that matches the sky sets the stage for director Garry Haynes' Ireland's Druid Theater production of Samuel Beckett's Waiting For Godot at Lincoln Center's White Light Festival. The production excels at finding the humor in the mundane; it pierces with a gracious, poignant truth of friendship. Haynes mines the piece for its quiet moments and visceral existential angst and vaudeville farce. She firmly redefines our notion of tragic daily rituals while finding the necessary, vital humor.

Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, a dynamic hub for the lively arts and vital community resource, presents the Los Angeles Master Chorale in two performances of Orlando di Lasso's dramatic a cappella masterpiece Lagrime di San Pietro (Tears of St. Peter) directed by Peter Sellars on Saturday, October 20, and Sunday, October 21, 2018, at 7:30 pm, in the Bram Goldsmith Theater at The Wallis. Conducted by the Master Chorale's Associate Conductor Jenny Wong and featuring 21 singers, the production is the first a cappella staging and most personal and emotionally-charged work to date from the acclaimed director's creative mind. Twenty-one singers transform the 75-minute Renaissance masterpiece - committed to memory and dramatically staged - into both a biblical parable of St. Peter's disavowal of Jesus Christ and a contemporary allegory for our fractious times. This marks The Wallis debut of the Master Chorale, whose appearance is part of a 13-city international tour that also includes performances at the Ravinia Festival in Illinois, the Melbourne International Arts Festival in Australia, Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, The Barbican Centre in London and the Cite de la Musique in Paris.

Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts announced its 2018 White Light Festival, which will run October 16 through November 18. The multidisciplinary festival will feature events presented in six venues across the city, including world, U.S., and New York premieres. The ninth annual international festival will explore transcendence, interior illumination, and the communal impulse as exhibited through artistic expression across continents and centuries.

Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts announced its 2018 White Light Festival, which will run October 16 through November 18. The multidisciplinary festival will feature events presented in six venues across the city, including world, U.S., and New York premieres. The ninth annual international festival will explore transcendence, interior illumination, and the communal impulse as exhibited through artistic expression across continents and centuries.

A performance at the Ravinia Festival in Illinois on September 13 will be the first date in the Los Angeles Master Chorale's wide-reaching tour of its acclaimed production of Orlando di Lasso's Lagrime di San Pietro (Tears of St. Peter) directed by Peter Sellars. The tour will feature 21 Master Chorale singers conducted by Grant Gershon, Kiki & David Gindler Artistic Director, and Jenny Wong, Associate Conductor.

Chicago Shakespeare Theater welcomes back Ireland's Druid theatre company-"one of the world's greatest acting ensembles" (The Guardian)-with its critically acclaimed production of Samuel Beckett's masterpiece, Waiting for Godot. Staged by Tony Award-winning director Garry Hynes, the production will be presented for a limited engagement in the Courtyard Theater as part of WorldStage at Chicago Shakespeare, May 23-June 3, 2018.

Southern California audiences will experience some of the most captivating and entertaining dance performances during The Music Center's upcoming dance season, with choreography that expresses deep emotions and movement that showcases the dimensions of both classical and contemporary dance.  Featuring a wide range of popular and groundbreaking dance companies, including The Music Center premiere of Company Wayne McGregor and the return of The Royal Ballet to The Music Center's stages after a 20-year absence, along with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, L.A.'s own Diavolo/Architecture in Motion and George Balanchine's The Nutcracker by Miami City Ballet, the upcoming Glorya Kaufman Presents Dance at The Music Center (Dance at The Music Center) season is the most fearless and dynamic to date.  Center Dance Arts is the founding supporter of Glorya Kaufman Presents Dance at The Music Center.

Chicago Shakespeare Theater welcomes back Ireland's Druid theatre company-"one of the world's greatest acting ensembles" (The Guardian)-with its critically acclaimed production of Samuel Beckett's masterpiece, Waiting for Godot. Staged by Tony Award-winning director Garry Hynes, the production will be presented for a limited engagement in the Courtyard Theater as part of WorldStage at Chicago Shakespeare, May 23-June 3, 2018.