E-Mail This Article to a Friend Fall happenings The recently remonikered Opera Boston's season schedule, the fall line-up from MultiStage Productions, the Björk affair, plus more

Opera Boston casting

Given all the redoubtable classic-musical groups in town, you could be forgiven for having lost track of which one Opera Boston is, especially since last year it was something else. Namely Boston Academy of Music, which brought us unusual operatic repertoire and often some Gilbert & Sullivan for dessert. Now it has a new name, Opera Boston, and a new music director, Gil Rose, and it’ll be back in its usual performance space, the Cutler Majestic Theatre, after a year at Northeastern’s Blackman Auditorium while the Majestic was being renovated.

Opera Boston’s 2003-2004 season —Leonard Bernstein’s Candide, John Adams’s Nixon in China, and Giuseppe Verdi’s Luisa Miller — was set some time ago; what’s new is the announcement of principal casting. Candide (November 28-30) will have Sanford Sylvan as Pangloss, James Schaffner as Candide, and Cara Johnston as Cunegonde. The accomplished Sylvan hardly needs an introduction in this town; he’s performed at the Glyndebourne Festival, on PBS’s Great Performances, and at New York City Opera. Schaffner has also performed with New York City Opera; Johnston has sung Amy in Mark Adamo’s Little Women, Fransquita in Carmen, Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia, and Marie in La fille du régiment. Bill Fabris, adjunct assistant professor of opera at Glassboro State College, will direct.

For Nixon in China (March 12 & 14), an "Opera Unlimited" collaboration between Opera Boston and Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Andrew Schroeder will sing Richard Nixon and Thomas Meglioranza will do Chou En-lai. Schroeder has been heard in Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia with New York City Opera and in Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde with the EOS Ensemble; Meglioranza has appeared with Chicago Opera Theatre, Brooklyn Academy of Music, and the Trinity Consort. Directing will be Scott Edmiston, the winner of 1998 and 2003 Elliot Norton Awards.

Luisa Miller (April 30 & May 2) will bring Barbara Quintiliani as Luisa Miller, Yeghishe Manucharyan as her suitor Rodolfo, and Robert Honeysucker as her father. Quintiliani was the winner of the 1999 Metropolitan Opera Auditions; she recently sang Elettra in Mozart’s Idomeneo. Manucharyan has performed in Boston numerous times, including with Boston Lyric Opera and Chorus pro Musica. Robert Honeysucker is another much-praised local artist who needs little introduction. The director, Jay Lesenger, has been artistic/general director of Chautauqua Opera since 1995; his credits include Turandot, Macbeth, La bohème, L’elisir d’amore, and Ariadne auf Naxos.

Gil Rose will conduct all three productions in the Majestic, whose new attractions include 200 new seats, additional lobby space, and refurbished balconies. For an Opera Boston subscription brochure, call (617) 451-9944 or visit www.operaboston.org.

L’affaire Björk

As you surely know by now, Björk’s appearance in Boston this past Sunday, the final stop of her world tour, got moved from Suffolk Downs racetrack to FleetBoston Pavilion the Wednesday before the event. MassConcerts, which had been the promoter of her concert, was unable to obtain a permit to stage the promised fireworks display, with the result that the show had to be moved to FleetBoston Pavilion and presented under the auspices of ClearChannel Entertainment, which operates the Pavilion. It’s not yet apparent why the Suffolk Downs permit was not obtained, but in any event the result was a blow to MassConcerts: it had given Björk’s people a $100,000 deposit and promoted the event, and some 1000 tickets that had been given away could not be honored at the Pavilion, where of course there’s less space than there would have been at Suffolk Downs (the show in fact became a complete sellout the moment it was moved).

The switch occurred after the Phoenix was printed, so there was no opportunity to correct our "8 Days" front page, on which Björk-at-Suffolk was a prominent feature. We did issue a correction on our Web page as soon as we learned what had happened, and we’d like to remind our readers that it’s a good idea to check www.bostonphoenix.com regularly for schedule changes and other updates.

Pillar of the community

The Dance Complex will be celebrating its 30th anniversary with a special concert later this month, but first it’s going to recognize its 12 years of classes (DC co-founder Rozann Kraus says she’ll continue to teach despite the mounting pressure for her to run for governor of California), workshops, and performances at the Odd Fellows Hall, 536 Massachusetts Avenue in Central Square, with an "open community meeting" this Sunday, September 7, at 4:30 p.m. The DC folks say, "We’ll review our history and discuss our future, meet new staff and volunteers, and answer questions." If you’re looking for a place to take dance classes or are just curious about this long-running Boston institution, you might want to drop in. You’re encouraged to bring food or drinks (no alcohol, please) to share; for information, call (617) 547-9363 or visit www.dancecomplex.org.

BCAE Volunteer Fair

Speaking of volunteering: if you’re looking to help out at some worthy cause but don’t have a particular one in mind, circle Thursday September 18 on your calendar. That’s when the Boston Center for Adult Education’s 14th annual Volunteer Fair will be setting up on the third floor of the Boston Marriott Copley Place Hotel. This is, we’re told, the largest gathering of non-profit organizations in the Northeast, with more than 200 represented, so you’re pretty sure to find something that suits your interests and sympathies. That’s from 4 to 8 p.m., and it’s free; for more information, call the BCAE at (877) VOL-FAIR.

MultiStage Fall 2003

Here’s the fall line-up from MultiStage Productions:

Mercedes Sosa

Berklee Performance Center

September 28 at 7 p.m.

Tickets: $30, $40, $45, $60;

box office, Ticketmaster,

MultiStage (617-661-1252 or

www.multistage.org)

John Gorka with special guest Mary Gauthier

Somerville Theatre

October 4 at 8 p.m.

Tickets: $22 and $26

Box office, Ticketmaster, MultiStage

"Ronnie Gilbert: A Radical Life with Song"

Sanders Theatre

October 19 at 3 p.m.

Tickets: $22 and $26;

Holyoke Center (617-496-2222),

Ticketmaster, MultiStage

Ani DiFranco

Orpheum

November 16 at 7:30 p.m.

Tickets: $32 and $35

On sale October 1,

Box office, Ticketmaster.

Rosalie Sorrels

First Congregational Church in Cambridge

November 21 at 8 p.m.

Tickets: $25

Ticketmaster, MultiStage

Jane Siberry

Sanders Theatre

November 22 at 8 p.m.

Tickets: $22 and $26

Holyoke Center,

Ticketmaster, MultiStage

The Capitol Steps

Sanders Theatre

November 29 at 8 p.m.

Tickets: $22, $27, $30

Holyoke Center,

Ticketmaster, MultiStage

Catie Curtis and Laura Love

Somerville Theatre

December 5 at 8 p.m.

Tickets: $22 and $26

Box office, Ticketmaster, MultiStage

Masterpiece Theatre Fall 2003

In case you’re wondering whether to make Sunday-night plans for October and early November, here’s what WGBH’s Masterpiece Theatre has scheduled for that period:

October 5: Our Town. This adaptation of the Thornton Wilder theater classic stars Paul Newman as the Stage Manager. We suspect this is the Westport Country Playhouse production that Steve Vineberg saw and reviewed last year (June 21 issue) and was moderately enthusiastic about.

October 12: Warrior Queen. Have to quote the MT press release on this one. "Alex Kingston (Moll Flanders, ER) stars as Queen Boudica, a fearsome Xena-like warrior, who leads the Celtic Britons in a revolt against the Roman Empire, circa 60 AD. Andrew Davies (Moll Flanders, Doctor Zhivago) scripted this thrilling true story about a chariot-driving patriot who dares to take on the most powerful army on earth." Boudica was a Celtic queen in what’s now East Anglia, and she did lead a revolt against the Romans. But was she really Xena-like? And will this production have any period resonance?

October 19: Goodbye, Mr. Chips. James Hilton’s novella about the eccentric schoolmaster whose career extends from Queen Victoria’s reign to post–World War I hasn’t turned up much since the 1939 Sam Wood film with Robert Donat (who beat out Gone with the Wind’s Clark Gable for the Best Actor Oscar) and Greer Garson. This one from Stuart Orme stars Martin Clunes and Victoria Hamilton.

November 2 and 9: Doctor Zhivago. Granted, David Lean’s 1965 epic, with Omar Sharif, Julie Christie, Geraldine Chaplin, Rod Steiger, and Tom Courtenay, was a gloss on Boris Pasternak’s sprawling and not very cinematic novel, even if Robert Bolt did win an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. But can TV, even MT, do it better? We’ll find out soon enough. Sam Neill has the Steiger part as Komarovsky, Hand Matheson (Mists of Avalon) is Yuri, and Keira Knightley (Bend It like Beckham, Pirates of the Caribbean) is Lara.