The Dandelion Chandelier Luxury Calendar for The Arts highlights noteworthy events around the world in April 2018 in ballet, modern dance, performance art, classical music, opera and jazz –plus notable new art museum exhibits and installations. Looking for a transporting cultural experience? Look no further. For the rest of the Luxury Calendar, click here.
This April we’re being showered with revivals of classic productions around the world. In New York you’ll find Anna Karenina; in Paris there’s Romeo and Juliet; and in Milan you’ll find Francesa Da Rimini, just for starters. Also plentiful this month are career surveys: Mel Chin, Haegue Yang, Jack Whitten and William Cordova each receive a retrospective of their works. We’re leaving our umbrellas at home – in the immortal words of The Weather Girls, with this many crazy-good cultural events happening, we want to get absolutely soaking wet. Hallelujah!
Performing Arts
The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis and Chick Corea play compositions by Thelonious Monk at the Rose Theater – April 5-7; Crescent City Monk with Herlin Riley & Friends continues the celebration in the spectacular Appel Room – April 6-7
Russia’s most innovative ballet company, Eifman Ballet of St. Petersburg, returns to New York to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of its first New York engagement. To celebrate the occasion, the company will make its Lincoln Center debut with four performances of Anna Karenina, based on Leo Tolstoy’s classic novel – April 6- 8
The German choreographer Sasha Waltz’s poignant version of Romeo and Juliet at the Opéra Bastille in Paris captures all the romanticism of Berlioz’s symphonic poem. The monochrome sobriety of the costumes and sets accentuates the dramatic intensity of the work and highlights the emotions of the young hero and heroine – April 6- May 8
Choreographer Sasha Waltz’s Romeo and Juliet
For the first time ever, Massenet’s sumptuous take on the Cinderella story comes to the Metropolitan Opera in New York, with Joyce DiDonato starring in the title role. Bertrand de Billy conducts Laurent Pelly’s imaginative storybook production of Cendrillon – April 12 – May 11
Richard Jones’s critically acclaimed production of Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk returns to the Royal Opera House in London after more than a decade, with Antonio Pappano conducting a cast led by Eva-Maria Westbroek in Shostakovich’s masterpiece – April 12- 27
Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk at the Royal Opera House
Francesca Da Rimini is returning to La Scala for the first time since 1959. D’Annunzio’s enthralling tale of passion and jealousy comes back to life in a new production by David Pountney – April 15- May 13
The Malta International Music Festival will feature numerous concert events, masterclasses and competitions in all branches of instrumental music – April 15- May 1
The British Museum holds its first major music festival, Europe and the world: a symphony of cultures. Over two weeks, the festival will celebrate and question Europe’s cultural interactions with the world, through a diverse range of music performances and in a series of panel discussions – April 16- 29
The British Museum
Music Director Antonio Pappano conducts the internationally renowned Orchestra of the Royal Opera House in a concert of orchestral works. The program includes Richard Strauss’s Metamorphosen, Frank Martin’s Sechs Monologe aus Jedermann, Shostakovich’s Eight British and American Folk Songs and Elgar’s Variations on an Original Theme (Enigma) – April 23
The New York City Ballet opens its spring season, the highlight of which will be a three-week Robbins 100 tribute to Founding Choreographer Jerome Robbins on the centennial of his birth, featuring a collection of his most celebrated works – April 24
Le Printemps de Bourges, the annual music festival held in Bourges, France over the course of five days, has proven to be a great venue to spot emerging talent – April 24-29
Wagner’s final opera, Parsifal, will be performed at the Opéra Bastille in Paris – April 27- May 23
Steven Reineke leads The New York Pops in a celebration of its 35th anniversary, honoring Oscar and Tony Award-winning composer Alan Menken at Carnegie Hall. Proceeds support the orchestra and its PopsEd music education programs throughout all five boroughs of New York City – April 30
Visual Arts
Diane Arbus: A Box of Ten Photographs opens at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington DC – April 6
Mel Chin: All Over the Place is a career survey at the Queens Museum, spanning four decades of work; it’s probably best summed up by the exhibition’s subtitle, as the conceptual artist will stage several off-site installations, including at the Broadway-Lafayette subway station and in Times Square, where he’ll present a newly commissioned augmented-reality piece – April 8- Aug 12
Mel Chin: All Over the Place at the Queens Museum, New York
L’Artiste, Createur de Mondes at the Foundation Louis Vuitton in Paris is a survey of 25 artists from Henri Matisse to sculptor Francois Morellet that seeks to answer timeless questions about our place in the universe – April 10
Huma Bhabha has been selected to create a site-specific installation for The Met’s Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden, the sixth in a series of commissions for the outdoor space. Bhabha’s work addresses themes of colonialism, war, displacement and memories of place – April 17- Oct 28
Prepare to swoon as the Museum Ludwig in Cologne offers more than 100 of Haegue Yang’s inventive works from the past 25 years. The exhibit, Haegue Yang: ETA 1994–2018 covers much of her diverse output, from her sculptures of blinds and lights to her recent assemblages of bells and artificial straw, and her lesser-known forays into other mediums – April 18- Aug 12
Haegue Yang Ornament and Abstraction
Helen Frankenthaler Prints: The Romance of a New Medium at the Art Institute of Chicago showcases more than 50 prints of the late American painter’s abstract expressionist work – April 20-September 30
The inaugural show at the Institute of Contemporary Art at Richmond’s Virginia Commonwealth University is a broad survey of contemporary art produced with the intention of creating social change; it’s aptly named Declaration. Among the exhibition’s 30 participants are Cassils, Cheryl Pope, Betty Tompkins and CHIM↑POM – April 21
The Baltimore Museum of Art will be featuring 40 examples of Jack Whitten’s sculptures in its exhibit Odyssey: Jack Whitten Sculpture, 1963–2017, and will include examples of works made by the late artist using materials including wood, marble, copper and bone. Also included in the show, which travels to the Metropolitan Museum of Art later this year, are works from Whitten’s “Black Monoliths” paintings series, which pay homage to Ralph Ellison, W. E. B. DuBois and others through abstract portraits – April 22- July 29
Jack Whitten Photo Credit: John Berens
Following its exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 2017, Painted in Mexico, 1700-1790 opens at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The collection includes more than 100 artworks – April 24- July 22
Takashi Murakami: Lineage of Eccentrics is a coffee-table book juxtaposing Murakami’s works with Japanese masterpieces to explore the concepts and techniques behind each – April 24
Japan in Architecture: Genealogies of Its Transformation at the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo is a survey of Japanese building design spanning ancient times to the present. Highlights will include a model of the oldest teahouse in Japan; designs by Tange Kenzo; and a new video installation by the firm Rhizomatiks Architecture – April 25–Sep 17
Mori Art Museum 15th Anniversary Exhibition Japan in Architecture: Genealogies of Its Transformation
The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis will present a series of works from interdisciplinary artist Jason Moran, who grounds his practice in musical composition and bridges the visual and performing arts through stagecraft. The exhibition will include sculptures of the stages of famous jazz venues, along with prerecorded music. One of the sculptures, of the Three Deuces stage, debuted at the Venice Biennale in 2015. It will also include the premiere of a new sculptural commission from a series that takes inspiration from the celebrated New York jazz venue Slugs’ Saloon, which was open from 1964 to the early 1970s. – April 26–Aug 26
William Cordova: now’s the time: narratives of southern alchemy at the Pérez Art Museum in Miami is the artist’s first major museum survey; it will include some 25 sculptures, collages, works on paper and videos, including documentation of Silent Parade . . . or the Soul Rebels Band vs. Robert E. Lee (2014), his commission for the third edition of the Prospect New Orleans triennial – April 27-Oct 7
See other April 2018 Events:
— Travel
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