Critics, reporters and editors of The New York Times have scanned the cultural horizon of the months ahead, and several offerings have caught their eyes. The creative minds behind the satiric animated series “South Park” take on Broadway with “The Book of Mormon,” a musical history of the founding of the Mormon Church, opening on March 24, while the actor Brian Bedford brings Oscar Wilde’s “Importance of Being Earnest” to the Roundabout Theater Company on Jan. 13. The Metropolitan Opera production of John Adams’s “Nixon in China” arrives on Feb. 2, with the director Peter Sellars making his Met debut. The exciting New York City Ballet dancer Sara Mearns should take on new roles, and the Merce Cunningham Dance Company will take its final bows.
Which of these will be topping our lists and yours a year from now? We’ll just have to wait and see. JULIE BLOOM
Theater
NEW BROADWAY MUSICAL
The crashing, crushing and smashing sounds that regularly emanate from “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” — the accident-prone $65 million musical now (and perhaps forever) in previews — have all but drowned out the advance word on a show that, in a Spidey-free season, would surely have some of the loudest buzz on Broadway. That’s “The Book of Mormon” (opening March 24 at the Eugene O’Neill Theater), a singing, dancing history of the founding of the Mormon Church that also tells the parallel story of two contemporary disciples who go to spread Joseph Smith’s gospel in Uganda.
Since this “Book of Mormon” is the brainchild of Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of the brilliant and routinely obscene “South Park” cartoon series, it is likely to feature words you would not hear in a Salt Lake City Sunday school. But it is also likely to have a high quotient of traditional (well, make that warped-traditional) American musical-comedy pizzazz and enthusiasm.
Mr. Parker and Mr. Stone, lest we forget, have shown an unexpected affinity for old-style Broadway razzmatazz, not only in the song-studded “South Park” series, but also in three feature-length films: the early, cheerfully gory “Cannibal! The Musical” (1993) and the better-known “South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut” (1999), whence came the Oscar-nominated song “Blame Canada,” and “Team America: World Police” (2004), which featured an acute send-up of “Rent.” (There are those — and they are not insane — who regard “Bigger, Longer and Uncut” as the great movie musical of the late 20th century.)
For “The Book of Mormon,” Mr. Parker and Mr. Stone have enlisted the collaboration of the composer Robert Lopez (“Avenue Q”) and the director and choreographer Casey Nicholaw (“The Drowsy Chaperone,” “Spamalot”), Broadway veterans who know that, in musicals, parody and sincerity are by no means mutually exclusive. Still, could a couple of guys from the world of cartoons become the new Comden and Green? Don’t rule out the possibility. It’s been a decade since I saw “Bigger, Longer and Uncut,” and I’m still humming the tune of a song whose title is unprintable in these pages. BEN BRANTLEY
Previews for the musical begin on Feb. 24, with a March 24 opening, at the Eugene O’Neill Theater, 230 West 49th Street, Manhattan; (212) 239-6200.
BROADWAY REVIVAL
Although she disappears for one of the three acts of Oscar Wilde’s “Importance of Being Earnest,” Lady Bracknell is such a delicious role that it is hardly surprising that actors — male ones, that is — are willing to brave the constrictions of Victorian corsets to deliver the peerless series of elaborately phrased acid aphorisms that drop from her disapprovingly curled lips.
The estimable classical actor Brian Bedford undertakes the role in the Roundabout Theater Company’s Broadway revival of Wilde’s scintillating comedy, maybe the greatest in the English language since Shakespeare’s day, now in previews at the American Airlines Theater.
Mr. Bedford has spent much of his stage career performing classical roles at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Canada, although his Broadway appearances — in Molière and Shakespeare, Coward and Stoppard — number more than a dozen, beginning with Peter Shaffer’s “Five Finger Exercise“ under the direction of John Gielgud in 1959. Mr. Bedford also directs the production, which originated at the Stratford Festival last year. Some of the Broadway cast is new, but when I caught the show at Stratford, Mr. Bedford’s doughty, formidable Lady Bracknell alone made the production a highlight of the season.
I anticipate taking renewed delight in this curious but heavenly matching of actor and role when the production opens next month. CHARLES ISHERWOOD
The revival, now in previews, opens on Jan. 13 at the American Airlines Theater, 227 West 42nd Street, Manhattan; roundabouttheatre.org.
NEVERLAND IN THE VILLAGE
The cynical theatergoer might say that "Peter and the Starcatcher" is a shrewdly conceived mirror of Broadway’s reigning prequel. Based on the popular adventure novel by Ridley Pearson and Dave Barry, about Peter Pan’s young, swashbuckling self, the show could be pitched in three words: “Wicked” for boys.
But the creative team that Disney Theatricals commissioned to create its first straight play suggests that the production, which will be staged at New York Theater Workshop, is concerned less with cashing in on a proven formula than with freshening J. M. Barrie’s beloved orphan-as-hero myth. The book was adapted for the stage by Rick Elice, a Tony Award-winning author of “Jersey Boys,” and direction will be shared by Alex Timbers, who recently wedded emo to history in “Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson,” and the actor Roger Rees, who will be replacing Nathan Lane in “The Addams Family” in March.
Originally presented in a workshop at La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego in 2009, the play-with-music reveals the precocious back story of Peter Pan, the Lost Boys, Captain Hook, Neverland and other well-known characters and locales. (Fans of the novel will notice that the title has been shortened to just one Starcatcher for the stage.) It will be refreshing to see the Boy Who Would Not Grow Up played by an actual (not-quite-a) boy: Adam Chanler-Berat, who plays Henry in the Broadway musical “Next to Normal,” will jump into the role of Peter after that show closes on Jan. 16.
The rest of the cast, which includes Christian Borle (“Legally Blonde”) and Celia Keenan-Bolger (“The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee”), will play some 50 roles, a challenge that should be familiar territory for Mr. Rees: he won a Tony Award for his performance in the character-teeming stage version of “The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby.” ERIK PIEPENBURG
“Peter and the Starcatcher” is to run from Feb. 18 to April 3 at New York Theater Workshop, 79 East Fourth Street, East Village; (212) 279-2400, nytw.org.
OFF BROADWAY COMEDY
It almost goes without saying that Lynn Nottage’s follow-up to the Pulitzer Prize-winning drama “Ruined” is something to anticipate. Intriguing, too, is word that her new play, “By the Way, Meet Vera Stark,” is a comedy set in Hollywood. But I’m especially looking forward to the production, which opens at Second Stage Theater (www.2st.com) in April, after getting a taste of what Kimberly Hebert Gregory can do with one of the roles.
During an excerpt from “Vera Stark” that was part of a November tribute to Ms. Nottage at Lincoln Center, Ms. Gregory read the role of Lottie, a struggling African-American actress in 1930s Hollywood frustrated that the only parts available to her are maids and servants. It’s not the lead — Second Stage hasn’t announced that casting yet — but in just a few juicy minutes onstage, Ms. Gregory demonstrated old-fashioned star quality. Vibrant and needlingly funny, she promises to be a terrific foil to whoever gets the title role. SCOTT HELLER
Dance
BALLET AND MORE
Can you determine history before it happens? If so, the most historic aspect of 2011 will be the final performances of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, after the death of Cunningham himself in July 2009. The 2011 second half of the company’s two-year “Legacy Tour” will take it to places in Asia and Europe as well as around the United States.
The tour will feature four groups of New York City performances. The Joyce Theater (March 22 to 27) will show “CRWDSPCR” (1993), “Quartet” (1982) and “Antic Meet” (1958). The Lincoln Center Festival will include an all-day bonanza (“Merce Fair”) on July 16 at the Rose Theater, featuring “Duets” (1980) and “Squaregame” (1976). A crowded Brooklyn Academy of Music season (Dec. 7 to 10) will present “Roaratorio” (1983), “Second Hand” (1970), “BIPED” (1999), “Pond Way” (1998), “RainForest” (1968) and “Split Sides” (2003). The company’s final three Events will occur at the Park Avenue Armory Dec. 29 to 31.
Yet other works (including, older than any of the above, the 1956 “Suite for Five”) will be seen elsewhere. The company is still superlative; this repertory contains more than 50 years of superlative choreography. Dance after 2011 will be greatly diminished.
To judge by her 2010 form, Sara Mearns — currently the great American ballerina of our time — will be the single local dancer to watch in ballet. I find myself longing not only to know what new roles will come her way at New York City Ballet, but also what her influence will be on other dancers in the company. (The troupe’s winter repertory season opens on Jan. 18 at the David H. Koch Theater.)
But it is outside ballet that the New York events for which I have most hope will occur: two local premieres by Paul Taylor in his City Center season (Feb. 22 to March 6) and three (one of them a world premiere) by Mark Morris (March 17 to 27) at the Mark Morris Dance Center in Brooklyn.
Outside New York, the rich dance fare at the Kennedy Center in Washington includes, at one end of the dance spectrum, the Mariinsky (Kirov) Ballet’s “Giselle” (Feb. 8 to 13), the ballet that, over the last 30 years, this company has often danced best.
That spectrum’s other end arrives a month later in the Kennedy Center’s “maximum INDIA” season. Its dance offerings (March 2 to 10) include Madhavi Mudgal and Alarmel Valli; Priyadarsini Govind and the Nrityagram Dance Ensemble; the Daksha Sheth Dance Company; Ragamala Dance and Dakshina/Daniel Phoenix Singh Dance Company; and Malavika Sarukkai. To anyone who still assumes that “classical” in dance must mean ballet, this is the season that I would recommend as a corrective. ALASTAIR MACAULAY
Merce Cunningham Dance Company schedule: merce.org. The Paul Taylor Dance Company is in Manhattan, Feb. 22 to March 6; nycitycenter.org. New York City Ballet’s winter repertory season runs Jan. 18 to Feb. 27 at the David H. Koch Theater, Lincoln Center; nycballet.com. The Mark Morris Dance Group performs March 17 to 27 at the Mark Morris Dance Center, 3 Lafayette Avenue, at Flatbush Avenue, Fort Greene, Brooklyn; markmorrisdancegroup.org. “Giselle” (Feb. 8 to 13) and “maximum INDIA” dance programs (March 2 to 10) are at the Kennedy Center in Washington; kennedy-center.org.
DANCE ON SCREEN
Even if “Black Swan” doesn’t win an Oscar (though I’m betting it does), there’s enough exciting dance on screen in 2011 to make you forget that wild little movie. Ballet is finally catching up to opera, with live screenings of performances of “Giselle” by the Royal Ballet on Jan. 19 and “Caligula” by the Paris Opera Ballet on Feb. 8, both at Big Cinemas Manhattan and at other movie theaters across the country. You can only hope that American dance companies will soon follow suit.
The 39th annual Dance on Camera Festival opens on Jan. 25 at the Baryshnikov Arts Center and continues at the Walter Reade Theater at Lincon Center and other locations. Of the many diverse films on the lineup, I’m most looking forward to the world premiere of “Claude Bessy, Lignes D’Une Vie” (“Traces of a Life”), by Fabrice Herrault, a documentary about that French ballerina. The film includes rare performance footage of this Paris Opera Ballet étoile in works by Gene Kelly, Serge Lifar and Maurice Béjart.
I’m also eager to see how dance continues to push its way into popular culture with Emily Blunt’s starring as a member of the Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet in “The Adjustment Bureau,” which opens in March.
The Grammy Awards telecast on Feb. 13 is also sure to offer a few memorable dance moments; I’m thinking of you, Lady Gaga, and Kanye West’s twisted ballerinas. And then there’s the inevitably entertaining but cringe-inducing Paula Abdul’s “Live to Dance,” which makes its television debut on CBS on Tuesday.
But the event I’m most anticipating is the premiere of Wim Wenders’s “Pina,” a 3-D tribute to the choreographer Pina Bausch. The two collaborated on this work until her death in 2009, when Mr. Wenders halted production. Thankfully, he decided to complete the film after her company and fans encouraged him to do so.
It will have its premiere at the Berlin Film Festival in February, and the trailer, which has received much love on Twitter, features dancers performing Bausch’s signature dramatic sequences in gorgeous dreamscapes: on city streets, in open fields and on the beach. It’s a vision I imagine Bausch would have loved. JULIE BLOOM
The Dance on Camera festival opens on Jan. 25 and will have screenings at the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center and other locations; dancefilmsassn.org.
Screens
FILM
In the movie universe, the first worth anticipating in the new year is “Season of the Witch.” For one thing, who doesn’t love that Donovan song, though this film, due next Friday, apparently has nothing to do with it? And for another, who doesn’t love finding out whether Nicolas Cage’s latest career choice is yet another crash-and-burn?
Since winning the best actor Oscar in 1996 for “Leaving Las Vegas,” Mr. Cage has seemingly been choosing roles by throwing darts at a script-covered wall, resulting in a fair number of clunkers but also the occasional interesting project. “Season of the Witch” could be either.
Mr. Cage plays a 14th-century knight who is assigned to transport a suspected witch to an abbey. There are bloody battles, supernatural goings-on and special effects. There are also lines of dialogue that, at least from the available trailers, sound as if they were cut and pasted from a book of action movie clichés. Treacherous waters indeed.
Then, on Feb. 11, comes what is surely the best title of the winter, “Gnomeo & Juliet.” This 3-D animated comedy from Touchstone gives Shakespeare’s play a ridiculous twist: the stars are garden ornaments that, like the characters in “Toy Story,” come to life when humans aren’t looking. (One, Fawn, is described this way on the film’s Web site: “Fawn is a Bambi gone wrong. A cute concrete deer with a foul mouth and a bad attitude.”)
Emily Blunt provides the voice of Juliet, James McAvoy is Gnomeo, and Elton John’s music gives the whole thing a beat. Breathless reports have indicated that the soundtrack will also include a new song: a duet performed by Mr. John and Lady Gaga. NEIL GENZLINGER
TELEVISION
The winter television season begins on Saturday, and as it unfolds, you will not be able to escape the news that Paula Abdul is back (in “Live to Dance,” Tuesday on CBS) and that the “Jersey Shore” crew has vacated Miami and returned to its natural habitat (Thursday on MTV). Even more unavoidable will be the fuss over Oprah Winfrey’s new network, which you can find, starting on Saturday, wherever you used to watch the Discovery Health Channel.
Hidden in the shadows of newsmakers like those will be a number of entertaining returning shows, at least four this coming week in the science fiction-fantasy category alone. Back from the dead on BBC America is the time-traveling scary-monster series (9 p.m. on Saturday), which was canceled after its third season but rescued when the British channel ITV found partners to share the costs of production.
The monsters are reptilian alien invaders — but quite nice to look at when they’re wearing their human skins — in ABC’s Saturday-matinee adventure which begins its second season on Tuesday (9 p.m.). There’s an amusing synopsis of Season 1 at abc.com.
Syfy brings back two shows with different futures. The BBC’s dark fantasy “Merlin,” a stolid but effective retelling of Arthurian legend in which Merlin and Arthur are teenagers, begins its third American season (10 p.m. next Friday), with a fourth already ordered back in Britain.
And the “Battlestar Galactica” prequel, “ which was canceled this fall before it could complete its first season, will burn off the last five episodes in a marathon from 6 to 11 p.m. on Tuesday. (If you want to be surprised by how the writers resolve the show’s multistranded, overly elaborate story, don’t do any Googling — the release of the final episodes on DVD means that it’s easy to stumble on complete synopses of the action.) MIKE HALE
VIDEO GAMES
As a group, the roster of new video games scheduled to be released in the first months of 2011 simply does not compare to the sensational game bounty of early 2010. That’s the bad news. The good news is that even though the overall lineup is thinner, there are plenty of games that are still expected to shine.
Two observations arise. First, Sony appears scheduled to release more major exclusive games for the PlayStation 3 over the next few months than Microsoft (for the Xbox 360) and Nintendo (for the Wii) combined. Second, Electronic Arts is publishing a raft of big titles in the next few months, while other third-party publishers (like Activision Blizzard and Take-Two) are lying relatively low.
The games with anticipated release dates are listed in chronological order. The games without dates are at the end.
LITTLEBIGPLANET 2 Publisher: Sony, for PlayStation 3. Expected Jan. 18. The first LBP let you create your own “platforming” levels, where you run and jump past obstacles. This sequel aims to go much further and become a game-creation authoring tool.
DEAD SPACE 2 Electronic Arts, for 360, PS3, Windows. Jan. 25. The science-fiction horror setting Dead Space is probably the best new franchise E.A. has developed in recent years. Dead Space 2 had better not suffer a sophomore slump.
BULLETSTORM Electronic Arts, for 360, PS3, Windows. Feb. 22. The name should say it all. Big guns, lots of lead and over-the-top mayhem are the themes here.
KILLZONE 3 Sony, for PS3. Feb. 22. More high-octane shooter action, to be released the same day as Bulletstorm. Killzone’s science fiction should be more realistic, self-coherent and tactical, if no less intense, than its competition that day.
DRAGON AGE II Electronic Arts, for 360, PS3, Windows. March 8. The sequel to one of the finest single-player role-playing games yet, Dragon Age returns gamers to a sprawling fantasy world of swords and sorcery. (N.B.: The original Dragon Age can easily take more than 100 hours to complete.)
MLB 11: THE SHOW Sony, for PS3. March 8. I almost never get excited about sports games, but MLB 11 has me curious because it is expected to use both the PS3’s motion-sensitive Move controller wand (say, as a virtual bat), as well as 3-D technology on suitable televisions. With the right gear, it could be a living-room batting box.
MICHAEL JACKSON: THE EXPERIENCE Ubisoft, for 360 Kinect. Early 2011. Ubisoft released this dancing game for other systems in November, but I have no interest until I can try it on Microsoft’s Kinect system, which can actually see and detect your body movements. Only then will we know which is really the king of Kinect dance games.
RIFT Trion Worlds, for Windows. Early 2011. The pretenders have come and gone, but Rift looks like the best competition the venerable World of Warcraft has had since WOW remade online gaming in 2004. It definitely looks better than WOW. But does it play better? Millions will be waiting to find out. SETH SCHIESEL
Music
OPERA
Not just opera buffs, but contemporary-music enthusiasts, theater fans and even students of politics are surely looking forward to the Metropolitan Opera premiere production of John Adams’s “Nixon in China” (Feb. 2 to 19). Though it has taken too long for this milestone 1987 work to reach the Met, the company is doing it up right. The production (introduced at the English National Opera) is by the director Peter Sellars, in his Met debut. The enticing cast includes the baritone James Maddalena, in his Met debut, as Nixon, a role he created. The composer will conduct.
Though “Nixon in China” should be the big news at the Met in the first months of 2011, I am looking forward to the company’s revival of Elijah Moshinsky’s stylish production of Tchaikovsky’s dramatically complex, musically magnificent opera “The Queen of Spades,” starring the charismatic soprano Karita Mattila as Lisa and the powerhouse tenor Vladimir Galouzine as Ghermann, with the brilliant Andris Nelsons conducting (March 11 to 26).
Among forthcoming recitals a standout is the pianist Jeremy Denk’s program at Zankel Hall (Feb. 16). Playing both books of the daunting, dazzling piano études by the colossal Gyorgy Ligeti, who died in 2006, would be formidable enough. But Mr. Denk will follow up with, oh, a little thing by Bach, the “Goldberg” Variations.
So far this season Met-goers have had chances to see James Levine at work, conducting with insight and assurance as he continues to mend from major health problems. Now audiences in the New York area will see how Mr. Levine is faring as the music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, when he brings his Boston band to town for three well-conceived programs at Carnegie Hall (March 15 to 17).
On the first, the superb violinist Christian Tetzlaff is soloist in a Mozart rondo, Bartok’s Second Concerto and a new concerto by the brilliant British composer Harrison Birtwistle. The second is devoted to Mozart and Schoenberg, including concertos by each composer played by the master pianist Maurizio Pollini. For the final program Mr. Levine tackles Mahler’s Ninth Symphony.
As the director Robert Lepage’s new production of Wagner’s “Ring” unfolds at the Met, another Lepage theatrical work, “The Nightingale and Other Short Fables,” will be presented by the Brooklyn Academy of Music, a co-production with the Canadian Opera Company (March 1 to 6). Here, Stravinsky’s opera “The Nightingale” is performed, along with shorter Stravinsky works, bound together by pan-Asian puppetry, spectacle, singing, dancing and, reportedly, 20,000 gallons of water. ANTHONY TOMMASINI
“Nixon in China” is at the Metropolitan Opera House Feb. 2 to 19, and “The Queen of Spades” is there March 11 to 26; metopera.org. Jeremy Denk is at Zankel Hall on Feb. 16, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra is at Carnegie Hall, March 15 to 17; carnegiehall.org. “The Nightingale and Other Short Fables” is at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, March 1 to 6, bam.org.
JAZZ
The heap of first-class improvised music in New York over the next month alone looks so good that I feel badly for everyone everywhere else. First, there’s WINTER JAZZFEST (winterjazzfest.com), next Friday and Jan. 8, spread across five clubs within a few cold steps of one another in Greenwich Village. Here is current New York jazz in context and enactment, situation and story: groups like the saxophonist Andrew D’Angelo’s Agogic, a quartet including the trumpeter Cuong Vu; the pianist Orrin Evans’s Captain Black Big Band; the trumpeter Shane Endsley’s Music Band; and the drummer Mike Pride’s From Bacteria to Boys.
THE SAXOPHONIST STEVE COLEMAN will play that festival, at Le Poisson Rouge on Jan. 8, with Five Elements — don’t miss it — but he also appears at the Jazz Standard (jazzstandard.net) in a trio led by the drummer Jeff (Tain) Watts, on Jan. 18 and 19.
And look what else:
THE RETURN OF DAVE HOLLAND’S OVERTONE QUARTET, with Chris Potter, Jason Moran and Eric Harland, at Birdland from Wednesday to Jan. 9 (birdlandjazz.com).
A BIG-BAND TRIPLE BILL at Littlefield on Thursday (littlefieldnyc.com) is put on by the indefatigable promotion outfit Search and Restore, with Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society, Fight the Big Bull and the Millennial Territory Orchestra.
THE SMART AND FLEXIBLE FRENCH SINGER CYRILLE AIMéE, in a band with the clarinetist Anat Cohen and the pianist Spike Wilner, at Smalls (smallsjazzclub.com) on Jan. 9.
THE GUITARIST JIM HALL in a band with the saxophonist Greg Osby, at Iridium (iridiumjazzclub.com) on Jan. 10.
FLY, the supremely cool-headed trio of Mark Turner, Larry Grenadier and Jeff Ballard, at the Jazz Gallery (jazzgallery.org) on Jan. 11.
THE POLISH TRUMPETER TOMASZ STANKO’S QUARTET — subdued, intense — with Chris Potter as guest, at the Jazz Standard Jan. 13 to 16.
A CONCERT CALLED ‘713>212,’ built around the bloc of great Houston musicians in the New York jazz scene (Jason Moran, Leron Thomas, Eric Harland, Jamire Williams, Robert Glasper, etc.), at 92Y Tribeca (92ytribeca.org) on Jan. 14.
THE GUITARIST JOEL HARRISON, playing Paul Motian’s music arranged for a string septet, at Joe’s Pub (joespub.com) on Jan. 23.
LINDA OH, a dynamic young bassist, with her ensemble and the Sirius String Quartet at the Jazz Gallery on Jan. 28.
CHARLES LLOYD’S QUARTET at the Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center (jalc.org) on Jan. 29.
The daily rounds are where it’s at. BEN RATLIFF
CLASSICAL MUSIC
By now just about everyone has noticed that the youngest generation of classical composers has been invigorating the art by pushing it toward the more experimental (“indie”) corners of pop and jazz. And while some listeners may find this an alarming development, it is worth noting that until relatively recently, art music and popular forms have had clear and direct links.
The Ecstatic Music Festival at Merkin Concert Hall will shine a bright spotlight on these musicians, starting with a free seven-hour marathon on Jan. 17 (Missy Mazzoli, Cory Dargel, Andrew Prior and Jefferson Friedman are among the featured composers) and ending with a concert by So Percussion and Bobby Previte with Zeena Parkins, DJ Olive and the singer Jen Shyu, on March 28.
Among the ensembles performing at the festival is Alarm Will Sound, which will join forces with Face the Music, a talented student group, for a performance of Steve Reich’s “Tehillim” on Jan. 30. Elsewhere — at Zankel Hall, on March 10 — Alarm Will Sound will present “1969,” an ambitious program it has been working on in recent seasons. A theatrical piece, it imagines a fictional meeting between John Lennon and Karlheinz Stockhausen, and includes Matt Marks’s orchestral arrangement of the Beatles’ “Revolution 9” and works by Luciano Berio and John Orfe. At the other end of the musical spectrum, the Boston Early Music Festival — a biennial explosion of concerts, lectures, master classes and symposiums that run from morning until after midnight — will take over churches, schools and concert halls all over Boston from June 12 to 19. Besides the concerts, by period-instrument and historically inclined vocal groups from around the world, the festival fills an exhibition hall with instrument makers, publishers and record labels, all showing their wares. And though the full schedule has not yet been announced, the festival’s centerpiece is a production of “Niobe, Regina di Tebe,” Agostino Steffani’s 1688 opera about the Theban queen whose pride enraged the gods. ALLAN KOZINN
Which of these will be topping our lists and yours a year from now? We’ll just have to wait and see. JULIE BLOOM
Theater
NEW BROADWAY MUSICAL
The crashing, crushing and smashing sounds that regularly emanate from “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” — the accident-prone $65 million musical now (and perhaps forever) in previews — have all but drowned out the advance word on a show that, in a Spidey-free season, would surely have some of the loudest buzz on Broadway. That’s “The Book of Mormon” (opening March 24 at the Eugene O’Neill Theater), a singing, dancing history of the founding of the Mormon Church that also tells the parallel story of two contemporary disciples who go to spread Joseph Smith’s gospel in Uganda.
Since this “Book of Mormon” is the brainchild of Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of the brilliant and routinely obscene “South Park” cartoon series, it is likely to feature words you would not hear in a Salt Lake City Sunday school. But it is also likely to have a high quotient of traditional (well, make that warped-traditional) American musical-comedy pizzazz and enthusiasm.
Mr. Parker and Mr. Stone, lest we forget, have shown an unexpected affinity for old-style Broadway razzmatazz, not only in the song-studded “South Park” series, but also in three feature-length films: the early, cheerfully gory “Cannibal! The Musical” (1993) and the better-known “South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut” (1999), whence came the Oscar-nominated song “Blame Canada,” and “Team America: World Police” (2004), which featured an acute send-up of “Rent.” (There are those — and they are not insane — who regard “Bigger, Longer and Uncut” as the great movie musical of the late 20th century.)
For “The Book of Mormon,” Mr. Parker and Mr. Stone have enlisted the collaboration of the composer Robert Lopez (“Avenue Q”) and the director and choreographer Casey Nicholaw (“The Drowsy Chaperone,” “Spamalot”), Broadway veterans who know that, in musicals, parody and sincerity are by no means mutually exclusive. Still, could a couple of guys from the world of cartoons become the new Comden and Green? Don’t rule out the possibility. It’s been a decade since I saw “Bigger, Longer and Uncut,” and I’m still humming the tune of a song whose title is unprintable in these pages. BEN BRANTLEY
Previews for the musical begin on Feb. 24, with a March 24 opening, at the Eugene O’Neill Theater, 230 West 49th Street, Manhattan; (212) 239-6200.
BROADWAY REVIVAL
Although she disappears for one of the three acts of Oscar Wilde’s “Importance of Being Earnest,” Lady Bracknell is such a delicious role that it is hardly surprising that actors — male ones, that is — are willing to brave the constrictions of Victorian corsets to deliver the peerless series of elaborately phrased acid aphorisms that drop from her disapprovingly curled lips.
The estimable classical actor Brian Bedford undertakes the role in the Roundabout Theater Company’s Broadway revival of Wilde’s scintillating comedy, maybe the greatest in the English language since Shakespeare’s day, now in previews at the American Airlines Theater.
Mr. Bedford has spent much of his stage career performing classical roles at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Canada, although his Broadway appearances — in Molière and Shakespeare, Coward and Stoppard — number more than a dozen, beginning with Peter Shaffer’s “Five Finger Exercise“ under the direction of John Gielgud in 1959. Mr. Bedford also directs the production, which originated at the Stratford Festival last year. Some of the Broadway cast is new, but when I caught the show at Stratford, Mr. Bedford’s doughty, formidable Lady Bracknell alone made the production a highlight of the season.
I anticipate taking renewed delight in this curious but heavenly matching of actor and role when the production opens next month. CHARLES ISHERWOOD
The revival, now in previews, opens on Jan. 13 at the American Airlines Theater, 227 West 42nd Street, Manhattan; roundabouttheatre.org.
NEVERLAND IN THE VILLAGE
The cynical theatergoer might say that "Peter and the Starcatcher" is a shrewdly conceived mirror of Broadway’s reigning prequel. Based on the popular adventure novel by Ridley Pearson and Dave Barry, about Peter Pan’s young, swashbuckling self, the show could be pitched in three words: “Wicked” for boys.
But the creative team that Disney Theatricals commissioned to create its first straight play suggests that the production, which will be staged at New York Theater Workshop, is concerned less with cashing in on a proven formula than with freshening J. M. Barrie’s beloved orphan-as-hero myth. The book was adapted for the stage by Rick Elice, a Tony Award-winning author of “Jersey Boys,” and direction will be shared by Alex Timbers, who recently wedded emo to history in “Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson,” and the actor Roger Rees, who will be replacing Nathan Lane in “The Addams Family” in March.
Originally presented in a workshop at La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego in 2009, the play-with-music reveals the precocious back story of Peter Pan, the Lost Boys, Captain Hook, Neverland and other well-known characters and locales. (Fans of the novel will notice that the title has been shortened to just one Starcatcher for the stage.) It will be refreshing to see the Boy Who Would Not Grow Up played by an actual (not-quite-a) boy: Adam Chanler-Berat, who plays Henry in the Broadway musical “Next to Normal,” will jump into the role of Peter after that show closes on Jan. 16.
The rest of the cast, which includes Christian Borle (“Legally Blonde”) and Celia Keenan-Bolger (“The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee”), will play some 50 roles, a challenge that should be familiar territory for Mr. Rees: he won a Tony Award for his performance in the character-teeming stage version of “The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby.” ERIK PIEPENBURG
“Peter and the Starcatcher” is to run from Feb. 18 to April 3 at New York Theater Workshop, 79 East Fourth Street, East Village; (212) 279-2400, nytw.org.
OFF BROADWAY COMEDY
It almost goes without saying that Lynn Nottage’s follow-up to the Pulitzer Prize-winning drama “Ruined” is something to anticipate. Intriguing, too, is word that her new play, “By the Way, Meet Vera Stark,” is a comedy set in Hollywood. But I’m especially looking forward to the production, which opens at Second Stage Theater (www.2st.com) in April, after getting a taste of what Kimberly Hebert Gregory can do with one of the roles.
During an excerpt from “Vera Stark” that was part of a November tribute to Ms. Nottage at Lincoln Center, Ms. Gregory read the role of Lottie, a struggling African-American actress in 1930s Hollywood frustrated that the only parts available to her are maids and servants. It’s not the lead — Second Stage hasn’t announced that casting yet — but in just a few juicy minutes onstage, Ms. Gregory demonstrated old-fashioned star quality. Vibrant and needlingly funny, she promises to be a terrific foil to whoever gets the title role. SCOTT HELLER
Dance
BALLET AND MORE
Can you determine history before it happens? If so, the most historic aspect of 2011 will be the final performances of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, after the death of Cunningham himself in July 2009. The 2011 second half of the company’s two-year “Legacy Tour” will take it to places in Asia and Europe as well as around the United States.
The tour will feature four groups of New York City performances. The Joyce Theater (March 22 to 27) will show “CRWDSPCR” (1993), “Quartet” (1982) and “Antic Meet” (1958). The Lincoln Center Festival will include an all-day bonanza (“Merce Fair”) on July 16 at the Rose Theater, featuring “Duets” (1980) and “Squaregame” (1976). A crowded Brooklyn Academy of Music season (Dec. 7 to 10) will present “Roaratorio” (1983), “Second Hand” (1970), “BIPED” (1999), “Pond Way” (1998), “RainForest” (1968) and “Split Sides” (2003). The company’s final three Events will occur at the Park Avenue Armory Dec. 29 to 31.
Yet other works (including, older than any of the above, the 1956 “Suite for Five”) will be seen elsewhere. The company is still superlative; this repertory contains more than 50 years of superlative choreography. Dance after 2011 will be greatly diminished.
To judge by her 2010 form, Sara Mearns — currently the great American ballerina of our time — will be the single local dancer to watch in ballet. I find myself longing not only to know what new roles will come her way at New York City Ballet, but also what her influence will be on other dancers in the company. (The troupe’s winter repertory season opens on Jan. 18 at the David H. Koch Theater.)
But it is outside ballet that the New York events for which I have most hope will occur: two local premieres by Paul Taylor in his City Center season (Feb. 22 to March 6) and three (one of them a world premiere) by Mark Morris (March 17 to 27) at the Mark Morris Dance Center in Brooklyn.
Outside New York, the rich dance fare at the Kennedy Center in Washington includes, at one end of the dance spectrum, the Mariinsky (Kirov) Ballet’s “Giselle” (Feb. 8 to 13), the ballet that, over the last 30 years, this company has often danced best.
That spectrum’s other end arrives a month later in the Kennedy Center’s “maximum INDIA” season. Its dance offerings (March 2 to 10) include Madhavi Mudgal and Alarmel Valli; Priyadarsini Govind and the Nrityagram Dance Ensemble; the Daksha Sheth Dance Company; Ragamala Dance and Dakshina/Daniel Phoenix Singh Dance Company; and Malavika Sarukkai. To anyone who still assumes that “classical” in dance must mean ballet, this is the season that I would recommend as a corrective. ALASTAIR MACAULAY
Merce Cunningham Dance Company schedule: merce.org. The Paul Taylor Dance Company is in Manhattan, Feb. 22 to March 6; nycitycenter.org. New York City Ballet’s winter repertory season runs Jan. 18 to Feb. 27 at the David H. Koch Theater, Lincoln Center; nycballet.com. The Mark Morris Dance Group performs March 17 to 27 at the Mark Morris Dance Center, 3 Lafayette Avenue, at Flatbush Avenue, Fort Greene, Brooklyn; markmorrisdancegroup.org. “Giselle” (Feb. 8 to 13) and “maximum INDIA” dance programs (March 2 to 10) are at the Kennedy Center in Washington; kennedy-center.org.
DANCE ON SCREEN
Even if “Black Swan” doesn’t win an Oscar (though I’m betting it does), there’s enough exciting dance on screen in 2011 to make you forget that wild little movie. Ballet is finally catching up to opera, with live screenings of performances of “Giselle” by the Royal Ballet on Jan. 19 and “Caligula” by the Paris Opera Ballet on Feb. 8, both at Big Cinemas Manhattan and at other movie theaters across the country. You can only hope that American dance companies will soon follow suit.
The 39th annual Dance on Camera Festival opens on Jan. 25 at the Baryshnikov Arts Center and continues at the Walter Reade Theater at Lincon Center and other locations. Of the many diverse films on the lineup, I’m most looking forward to the world premiere of “Claude Bessy, Lignes D’Une Vie” (“Traces of a Life”), by Fabrice Herrault, a documentary about that French ballerina. The film includes rare performance footage of this Paris Opera Ballet étoile in works by Gene Kelly, Serge Lifar and Maurice Béjart.
I’m also eager to see how dance continues to push its way into popular culture with Emily Blunt’s starring as a member of the Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet in “The Adjustment Bureau,” which opens in March.
The Grammy Awards telecast on Feb. 13 is also sure to offer a few memorable dance moments; I’m thinking of you, Lady Gaga, and Kanye West’s twisted ballerinas. And then there’s the inevitably entertaining but cringe-inducing Paula Abdul’s “Live to Dance,” which makes its television debut on CBS on Tuesday.
But the event I’m most anticipating is the premiere of Wim Wenders’s “Pina,” a 3-D tribute to the choreographer Pina Bausch. The two collaborated on this work until her death in 2009, when Mr. Wenders halted production. Thankfully, he decided to complete the film after her company and fans encouraged him to do so.
It will have its premiere at the Berlin Film Festival in February, and the trailer, which has received much love on Twitter, features dancers performing Bausch’s signature dramatic sequences in gorgeous dreamscapes: on city streets, in open fields and on the beach. It’s a vision I imagine Bausch would have loved. JULIE BLOOM
The Dance on Camera festival opens on Jan. 25 and will have screenings at the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center and other locations; dancefilmsassn.org.
Screens
FILM
In the movie universe, the first worth anticipating in the new year is “Season of the Witch.” For one thing, who doesn’t love that Donovan song, though this film, due next Friday, apparently has nothing to do with it? And for another, who doesn’t love finding out whether Nicolas Cage’s latest career choice is yet another crash-and-burn?
Since winning the best actor Oscar in 1996 for “Leaving Las Vegas,” Mr. Cage has seemingly been choosing roles by throwing darts at a script-covered wall, resulting in a fair number of clunkers but also the occasional interesting project. “Season of the Witch” could be either.
Mr. Cage plays a 14th-century knight who is assigned to transport a suspected witch to an abbey. There are bloody battles, supernatural goings-on and special effects. There are also lines of dialogue that, at least from the available trailers, sound as if they were cut and pasted from a book of action movie clichés. Treacherous waters indeed.
Then, on Feb. 11, comes what is surely the best title of the winter, “Gnomeo & Juliet.” This 3-D animated comedy from Touchstone gives Shakespeare’s play a ridiculous twist: the stars are garden ornaments that, like the characters in “Toy Story,” come to life when humans aren’t looking. (One, Fawn, is described this way on the film’s Web site: “Fawn is a Bambi gone wrong. A cute concrete deer with a foul mouth and a bad attitude.”)
Emily Blunt provides the voice of Juliet, James McAvoy is Gnomeo, and Elton John’s music gives the whole thing a beat. Breathless reports have indicated that the soundtrack will also include a new song: a duet performed by Mr. John and Lady Gaga. NEIL GENZLINGER
TELEVISION
The winter television season begins on Saturday, and as it unfolds, you will not be able to escape the news that Paula Abdul is back (in “Live to Dance,” Tuesday on CBS) and that the “Jersey Shore” crew has vacated Miami and returned to its natural habitat (Thursday on MTV). Even more unavoidable will be the fuss over Oprah Winfrey’s new network, which you can find, starting on Saturday, wherever you used to watch the Discovery Health Channel.
Hidden in the shadows of newsmakers like those will be a number of entertaining returning shows, at least four this coming week in the science fiction-fantasy category alone. Back from the dead on BBC America is the time-traveling scary-monster series (9 p.m. on Saturday), which was canceled after its third season but rescued when the British channel ITV found partners to share the costs of production.
The monsters are reptilian alien invaders — but quite nice to look at when they’re wearing their human skins — in ABC’s Saturday-matinee adventure which begins its second season on Tuesday (9 p.m.). There’s an amusing synopsis of Season 1 at abc.com.
Syfy brings back two shows with different futures. The BBC’s dark fantasy “Merlin,” a stolid but effective retelling of Arthurian legend in which Merlin and Arthur are teenagers, begins its third American season (10 p.m. next Friday), with a fourth already ordered back in Britain.
And the “Battlestar Galactica” prequel, “ which was canceled this fall before it could complete its first season, will burn off the last five episodes in a marathon from 6 to 11 p.m. on Tuesday. (If you want to be surprised by how the writers resolve the show’s multistranded, overly elaborate story, don’t do any Googling — the release of the final episodes on DVD means that it’s easy to stumble on complete synopses of the action.) MIKE HALE
VIDEO GAMES
As a group, the roster of new video games scheduled to be released in the first months of 2011 simply does not compare to the sensational game bounty of early 2010. That’s the bad news. The good news is that even though the overall lineup is thinner, there are plenty of games that are still expected to shine.
Two observations arise. First, Sony appears scheduled to release more major exclusive games for the PlayStation 3 over the next few months than Microsoft (for the Xbox 360) and Nintendo (for the Wii) combined. Second, Electronic Arts is publishing a raft of big titles in the next few months, while other third-party publishers (like Activision Blizzard and Take-Two) are lying relatively low.
The games with anticipated release dates are listed in chronological order. The games without dates are at the end.
LITTLEBIGPLANET 2 Publisher: Sony, for PlayStation 3. Expected Jan. 18. The first LBP let you create your own “platforming” levels, where you run and jump past obstacles. This sequel aims to go much further and become a game-creation authoring tool.
DEAD SPACE 2 Electronic Arts, for 360, PS3, Windows. Jan. 25. The science-fiction horror setting Dead Space is probably the best new franchise E.A. has developed in recent years. Dead Space 2 had better not suffer a sophomore slump.
BULLETSTORM Electronic Arts, for 360, PS3, Windows. Feb. 22. The name should say it all. Big guns, lots of lead and over-the-top mayhem are the themes here.
KILLZONE 3 Sony, for PS3. Feb. 22. More high-octane shooter action, to be released the same day as Bulletstorm. Killzone’s science fiction should be more realistic, self-coherent and tactical, if no less intense, than its competition that day.
DRAGON AGE II Electronic Arts, for 360, PS3, Windows. March 8. The sequel to one of the finest single-player role-playing games yet, Dragon Age returns gamers to a sprawling fantasy world of swords and sorcery. (N.B.: The original Dragon Age can easily take more than 100 hours to complete.)
MLB 11: THE SHOW Sony, for PS3. March 8. I almost never get excited about sports games, but MLB 11 has me curious because it is expected to use both the PS3’s motion-sensitive Move controller wand (say, as a virtual bat), as well as 3-D technology on suitable televisions. With the right gear, it could be a living-room batting box.
MICHAEL JACKSON: THE EXPERIENCE Ubisoft, for 360 Kinect. Early 2011. Ubisoft released this dancing game for other systems in November, but I have no interest until I can try it on Microsoft’s Kinect system, which can actually see and detect your body movements. Only then will we know which is really the king of Kinect dance games.
RIFT Trion Worlds, for Windows. Early 2011. The pretenders have come and gone, but Rift looks like the best competition the venerable World of Warcraft has had since WOW remade online gaming in 2004. It definitely looks better than WOW. But does it play better? Millions will be waiting to find out. SETH SCHIESEL
Music
OPERA
Not just opera buffs, but contemporary-music enthusiasts, theater fans and even students of politics are surely looking forward to the Metropolitan Opera premiere production of John Adams’s “Nixon in China” (Feb. 2 to 19). Though it has taken too long for this milestone 1987 work to reach the Met, the company is doing it up right. The production (introduced at the English National Opera) is by the director Peter Sellars, in his Met debut. The enticing cast includes the baritone James Maddalena, in his Met debut, as Nixon, a role he created. The composer will conduct.
Though “Nixon in China” should be the big news at the Met in the first months of 2011, I am looking forward to the company’s revival of Elijah Moshinsky’s stylish production of Tchaikovsky’s dramatically complex, musically magnificent opera “The Queen of Spades,” starring the charismatic soprano Karita Mattila as Lisa and the powerhouse tenor Vladimir Galouzine as Ghermann, with the brilliant Andris Nelsons conducting (March 11 to 26).
Among forthcoming recitals a standout is the pianist Jeremy Denk’s program at Zankel Hall (Feb. 16). Playing both books of the daunting, dazzling piano études by the colossal Gyorgy Ligeti, who died in 2006, would be formidable enough. But Mr. Denk will follow up with, oh, a little thing by Bach, the “Goldberg” Variations.
So far this season Met-goers have had chances to see James Levine at work, conducting with insight and assurance as he continues to mend from major health problems. Now audiences in the New York area will see how Mr. Levine is faring as the music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, when he brings his Boston band to town for three well-conceived programs at Carnegie Hall (March 15 to 17).
On the first, the superb violinist Christian Tetzlaff is soloist in a Mozart rondo, Bartok’s Second Concerto and a new concerto by the brilliant British composer Harrison Birtwistle. The second is devoted to Mozart and Schoenberg, including concertos by each composer played by the master pianist Maurizio Pollini. For the final program Mr. Levine tackles Mahler’s Ninth Symphony.
As the director Robert Lepage’s new production of Wagner’s “Ring” unfolds at the Met, another Lepage theatrical work, “The Nightingale and Other Short Fables,” will be presented by the Brooklyn Academy of Music, a co-production with the Canadian Opera Company (March 1 to 6). Here, Stravinsky’s opera “The Nightingale” is performed, along with shorter Stravinsky works, bound together by pan-Asian puppetry, spectacle, singing, dancing and, reportedly, 20,000 gallons of water. ANTHONY TOMMASINI
“Nixon in China” is at the Metropolitan Opera House Feb. 2 to 19, and “The Queen of Spades” is there March 11 to 26; metopera.org. Jeremy Denk is at Zankel Hall on Feb. 16, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra is at Carnegie Hall, March 15 to 17; carnegiehall.org. “The Nightingale and Other Short Fables” is at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, March 1 to 6, bam.org.
JAZZ
The heap of first-class improvised music in New York over the next month alone looks so good that I feel badly for everyone everywhere else. First, there’s WINTER JAZZFEST (winterjazzfest.com), next Friday and Jan. 8, spread across five clubs within a few cold steps of one another in Greenwich Village. Here is current New York jazz in context and enactment, situation and story: groups like the saxophonist Andrew D’Angelo’s Agogic, a quartet including the trumpeter Cuong Vu; the pianist Orrin Evans’s Captain Black Big Band; the trumpeter Shane Endsley’s Music Band; and the drummer Mike Pride’s From Bacteria to Boys.
THE SAXOPHONIST STEVE COLEMAN will play that festival, at Le Poisson Rouge on Jan. 8, with Five Elements — don’t miss it — but he also appears at the Jazz Standard (jazzstandard.net) in a trio led by the drummer Jeff (Tain) Watts, on Jan. 18 and 19.
And look what else:
THE RETURN OF DAVE HOLLAND’S OVERTONE QUARTET, with Chris Potter, Jason Moran and Eric Harland, at Birdland from Wednesday to Jan. 9 (birdlandjazz.com).
A BIG-BAND TRIPLE BILL at Littlefield on Thursday (littlefieldnyc.com) is put on by the indefatigable promotion outfit Search and Restore, with Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society, Fight the Big Bull and the Millennial Territory Orchestra.
THE SMART AND FLEXIBLE FRENCH SINGER CYRILLE AIMéE, in a band with the clarinetist Anat Cohen and the pianist Spike Wilner, at Smalls (smallsjazzclub.com) on Jan. 9.
THE GUITARIST JIM HALL in a band with the saxophonist Greg Osby, at Iridium (iridiumjazzclub.com) on Jan. 10.
FLY, the supremely cool-headed trio of Mark Turner, Larry Grenadier and Jeff Ballard, at the Jazz Gallery (jazzgallery.org) on Jan. 11.
THE POLISH TRUMPETER TOMASZ STANKO’S QUARTET — subdued, intense — with Chris Potter as guest, at the Jazz Standard Jan. 13 to 16.
A CONCERT CALLED ‘713>212,’ built around the bloc of great Houston musicians in the New York jazz scene (Jason Moran, Leron Thomas, Eric Harland, Jamire Williams, Robert Glasper, etc.), at 92Y Tribeca (92ytribeca.org) on Jan. 14.
THE GUITARIST JOEL HARRISON, playing Paul Motian’s music arranged for a string septet, at Joe’s Pub (joespub.com) on Jan. 23.
LINDA OH, a dynamic young bassist, with her ensemble and the Sirius String Quartet at the Jazz Gallery on Jan. 28.
CHARLES LLOYD’S QUARTET at the Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center (jalc.org) on Jan. 29.
The daily rounds are where it’s at. BEN RATLIFF
CLASSICAL MUSIC
By now just about everyone has noticed that the youngest generation of classical composers has been invigorating the art by pushing it toward the more experimental (“indie”) corners of pop and jazz. And while some listeners may find this an alarming development, it is worth noting that until relatively recently, art music and popular forms have had clear and direct links.
The Ecstatic Music Festival at Merkin Concert Hall will shine a bright spotlight on these musicians, starting with a free seven-hour marathon on Jan. 17 (Missy Mazzoli, Cory Dargel, Andrew Prior and Jefferson Friedman are among the featured composers) and ending with a concert by So Percussion and Bobby Previte with Zeena Parkins, DJ Olive and the singer Jen Shyu, on March 28.
Among the ensembles performing at the festival is Alarm Will Sound, which will join forces with Face the Music, a talented student group, for a performance of Steve Reich’s “Tehillim” on Jan. 30. Elsewhere — at Zankel Hall, on March 10 — Alarm Will Sound will present “1969,” an ambitious program it has been working on in recent seasons. A theatrical piece, it imagines a fictional meeting between John Lennon and Karlheinz Stockhausen, and includes Matt Marks’s orchestral arrangement of the Beatles’ “Revolution 9” and works by Luciano Berio and John Orfe. At the other end of the musical spectrum, the Boston Early Music Festival — a biennial explosion of concerts, lectures, master classes and symposiums that run from morning until after midnight — will take over churches, schools and concert halls all over Boston from June 12 to 19. Besides the concerts, by period-instrument and historically inclined vocal groups from around the world, the festival fills an exhibition hall with instrument makers, publishers and record labels, all showing their wares. And though the full schedule has not yet been announced, the festival’s centerpiece is a production of “Niobe, Regina di Tebe,” Agostino Steffani’s 1688 opera about the Theban queen whose pride enraged the gods. ALLAN KOZINN
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