La Boheme Long before Hollywood ever heard of Baz Luhrmann, he was a famous opera director in Australia. Now the man who created “Moulin Rouge” brings his “La Boheme” to the New York stage. This is no dumbed-down Broadway production–Luhrmann resets the opera in 1957 Paris, but Puccini’s music will be sung in its original Italian (with English super-titles). Given Luhrmann’s spectacular visual panache, his “Boheme” won’t need much translation. Dec. 8.
Imaginary Friends For all her literary accomplishments, Mary McCarthy may well be best-remembered for the zinger she once flung at rival Lillian Hellman: “Every word she writes is a lie, including ‘and’ and ’the’.” Ever wonder what it would be like to spend some time with those two? Nora Ephron tells you in “Imaginary Friends,” starring Cherry Jones as McCarthy and Swoosie Kurtz as Hellman. San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre, Sept. 28.
St. Francois d’Assise Olivier Messaien (1908-1992) finished this five-hour opera in 1982; it’s never been produced in the United States. One critic called it “bombastic” and “musically unchaste.” But with Donald Runnicles conducting and the magisterial Willard White as Francis, it couldn’t have a better shot at the canon. San Francisco Opera, Sept. 27.
Burn This As if a play called “Burn This” needed any more firepower, the off-Broadway revival will star Hollywood hotties Edward Norton and Catherine Keener. They play Pale and Anna, a pair of wildly mismatched–and just plain wild–lovers in Lanford Wilson’s 1987 play about regret, opportunity and loss. The original production starred Joan Allen, who won a Tony, and John Malkovich, who wore a wig. Consider that a double-dare, Keener and Norton. Sept. 19.
Also Checkout: Hollywood Arms is Carol Burnett’s auto-biographical play about her childhood, written with her late daughter Carrie Hamilton. Linda Lavin plays Burnett’s beloved Nanny–the one she tugged her ear for on TV all those years. In New York, Oct. 31.
Ready for another movie turned Broadway musical? A Man of No Importance stars Roger Rees as a sensitive Irish bus driver and Faith Prince as his sister. Oct. 10.
New York’s toughest ticket may be Bertolt Brecht’s The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui. Brecht? Yep. It stars Al Pacino, Billy Crudup, Dominic Chianese and John Goodman. Oct. 3.
But don’t expect to waltz into the world premiere of composer John Adams’s 9-11 tribute On the Transmigration of Souls with the New York Philharmonic. Sept. 19.
And celebrity mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli will kick off her first U.S. concert tour in two years in Washington. Sept. 25.
