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Looking for something pretty, witty and bright? LA Opera can offer a production of West Side Story when it kicks off its 40th anniversary season in September at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

Music director James Conlon begins his 20th and final season in Los Angeles by conducting the company premiere of the Leonard Bernstein-Stephen Sondheim classic, which will feature iconic Jerome Robbins original choreography and star Gabriella Reyes as Maria and Duke Kim as Tony. The first of eight scheduled performances is Sept. 20.

Also announced Tuesday for the Chandler are Puccini’s La Bohème (starting Nov. 8) in a Herbert Ross production led by Colombian American resident conductor Lina González-Granados; Philip Glass’ ancient Egypt-set Akhnaten (Feb. 28), led by Ukrainian-born Finnish guest conductor Dalia Stasevska and starring countertenor John Holiday; and two other operas conducted by Condon: Verdi’s Falstaff (April 18), starring Craig Colclough, and Mozart’s The Magic Flute...

Let the games begin. The Paris Olympics kicked off with a bang on Friday, July 26, during the opening ceremony hosted along the River Seine. Athletes from across the world repped their country and artists channeled French pop culture history with ballooning levels of spectacle — from Lady Gaga channeling a French cabaret icon to Les Mis being turned into a rock opera backed by multiple headless Marie Antoinette figures.

Even in the pouring rain, the performers leaned fully into spectacle for a wild ride of an opening event as the torch...

Chicago – When the word “Opera” is defined today, the person that would illustrate the word is Renée Fleming. The lyric soprano has done most major female opera roles, and has written a new book … “Music and Mind: Harnessing the Arts for Health and Wellness” … and recently appeared at the Chicago Humanities Festival.

Renée Fleming has performed coloratura, lyric, and lighter spinto soprano operatic roles in Italian, German, French, Czech, and Russian, aside from her native English. A significant portion of her career has been the performance of new music, including world premieres of operas, concert pieces, and songs composed for her by André Previn, Caroline Shaw, Kevin Puts, Anders Hillborg, Nico Muhly, Henri Dutilleux, Brad Mehldau, and Wayne Shorter.

Renée Fleming at the Chicago Humanities Festival, May 8, 2024

Photo credit: Joe Arce of Starstruck Foto for HollywoodChicago.com

Renée Lynn Fleming was born in Indiana, Pennsylvania, and got her Masters of...

Queer the Ballet presents the world premiere of Dream of a Common Language from Friday, June 21 to Sunday, June 23, 2024, with performances at 7:30pm on June 21 and 22, and 2pm matinees on June 22 and 23. Performances will take place at Baruch Performing Arts Center, 55 Lexington Avenue, NYC. Tickets are $40, with student tickets available for $25, and can be purchased online at https://ci.ovationtix.com/36678/production/1194112?performanceId=11435956.

Dream of a Common Language is a new evening-length ballet inspired by lesbian writer and activist Adrienne Rich’s 1978 poetry collection by the same name. Directed by Adriana Pierce, founder of Queer the Ballet, the program includes choreography by Adriana Pierce, Minnie Lane, Rosie Elliott, and Lenai Alexis Wilkerson with dramaturgy by Emily DeMaioNewton. The story follows six dancers’ journeys through community, friendship, romance, and heartbreak, bringing to light the similarities between Adrienne Rich’s yearning for queer community in the 70s and queer ballet dancers...

Each week on “Whatcha Packin’,” Michelle Visage interviews the recently eliminated queen, but for the three finalists of season 16 she’s sitting down to chat ahead of the April 19 “Grand Finale.” Sapphira Cristál and Michelle bond over being foodies, mothers, and Sapphira’s embrace of being slew footed. Watch the full episode above via the official RuPaul’s Drag Race channel on YouTube.

In her interview with Michelle, Sapphira tells the story of how she started singing opera at the age of 13 by attending a performing and visual arts high school, but she was first inspired when she saw “La Boheme” at the age of four and was enthralled. She goes on to say that drag and opera happened simultaneously for her because she came to drag by way of opera. She also admitted that when she first started doing her drag her mom was not initially supportive because she didn...

Halle Berry and Gwyneth Paltrow are among the high-profile names that have been added to the popular ‘In-Conversation’ sidebar section at the third edition of Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea Film Festival. Scroll down for the full list of attendees.

Further In-Conversation add-ons include Bollywood actress Alia Bhatt and Catherine Martin.

They join previously announced attendees such as Ranveer Singh (Gully Boy), Katrina Kaif (Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara), Yasmine Sabri (Bogeyman), Will Smith, Bollywood legend Karan Johar (My Name is Khan), and Baz Lurhmann, the head of this year’s competition jury at Red Sea.

“The In Conversation line-up this year has some of the most iconic names in entertainment from across the globe, who are each trailblazers in their fields,” Mohammed Al-Turki, CEO of the Red Sea International Film, Festival said. “They are converging on Jeddah to give festival-goers an insight into their work and inspiration – from multihyphenate creators...

Ron Howard doesn’t remember meeting Luciano Pavarotti so much as feeling his presence. “My memory has less to do with my brief handshake and fleeting eye contact with the maestro and more to do with the fact that it was at this giant Golden Globes event with major movie stars and elite television stars,” the film director says. “But even with those people there, when he arrived, he was it. And that was in the early Eighties, before the Three Tenors even. He was beginning to have that kind of impact,...

The 2018 Tony Awards were graced with the drama students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, who sang a touching rendition of “Seasons of Love” from the Tony-winning musical “Rent.”

They were introduced by former “Glee” star Matthew Morrison, who recently performed a benefit concert in support of the victims of the tragic shooting at the Parkland, Fla. high school.

Marjory Stoneman Douglas musical theater instructor Melody Herzfeld had just been awarded the 2018 Excellence in Theatre Education Award. Herzfeld saved 65 lives by barricading students into a small classroom closet on Valentine’s Day when a shooter went on a rampage, killing 17 people.

The original 1996 Broadway production of “Rent” was nominated for 10 Tony Awards. It won four, including best musical, best book for a musical, best original score, and best performance by a featured actor in a musical for Wilson Jermaine Heredia. Heredia played Angel Dumott Schunard.

.@Matt_Morrison welcomes the Marjory...

As an entry into Finnish auteur Aki Kaurismaki’s filmography, his 1992 film La Vie De Boheme, which is loosely based on Henri Murger’s Scenes De La Vie De Boheme, (the basis for the famed opera La Boheme), is an excellent starting point. His first French feature, Kaurismaki’s absurdist, deadpan tone is in high gear with this lively look at a trio of disheveled outcasts eking it out as artists on society’s fray.

Three struggling creative types (composer/writer/painter) live together for support and necessity as they try to peddle their own original output. Marcel Marx (Andre Wilms) is an aspiring playwright and magazine editor, and has had considerable difficulty getting someone to publish his latest work, “The Avenger: A Play in 21 Acts.” Rodolfo (Matti Pellonpaa) is an Albanian painter illegally living in Paris, though lucky enough to have found at least one patron to purchase his works.

In the first part of a new series, Zoe takes a look back at the history of MGM, one of Hollywood’s oldest and most notable studios...

Studios have come and gone since the birth of cinema, and the film business is an unpredictable one, as the history of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer reveals. Founded in 1924, its name conjures up images of lavish musicals, sweeping historical epics, glamorous stars and its mascot, Leo the lion.

It’s fair to say that MGM is one of the most famous and influential studios in Hollywood, and certainly one of the most iconic studios to come out of American film industry. But where did it all begin?

The story begins in the early 1920s. Vaudeville, previously one of the most popular forms of entertainment, is beginning to dwindle, as movies capture the public’s imagination. Enter Marcus Loew, a theatre chain owner. What Loew wanted was...