The Dandelion Chandelier Luxury Calendar for The Arts highlights noteworthy events around the world in November 2018 in ballet, modern dance, performance art, classical music, opera and jazz –plus notable new art museum exhibits and installations. For the rest of the Luxury Calendar, click here.
In the arts, November is the official start of the holiday season. In addition to iconic and beloved performances of works like the Nutcracker, the month will see Christmas in New York at Carnegie Hall, the return of the Alvin Ailey Dance Company to City Center for its 60th anniversary, and It’s a Wonderful Life at the San Francisco Opera.
But it’s not all about the holidays: the visual arts will see block-buster openings, including Andy Warhol: From A to B and Back Again at the Whitney, Syria Matters at the Museum of Islamic Art and Sally Mann at the Getty in LA.
Performing Arts
The White Light Festival continues at Lincoln Center with Waiting for Gadot and Only the Sound Remains – through Nov 18
The 2018 Performa Gala will honor Christo and Jeanna-Claude. Performa is dedicated to exploring the critical role of live performance in the history of twentieth-century art and to encouraging new directions in performance for the twenty-first century – Nov 1
At Jazz at Lincoln Center Diane Schuur (AKA “Deedles”) will be performing tunes from Diane Schuur & The Count Basie Orchestra, her classic album that topped the Billboard jazz charts for nearly a year and earned Schuur her second Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Performance – Nov 2 – 3
The LA Phil, The Industry and LA Phil Artist-Collaborator Yuval Sharon team up for a wild new production of Cage’s radical revelation, Europeras 1 & 2 – Nov 6, 10 and 11
The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis performs Miles Davis’ groundbreaking music from the 1940s–60s, showcasing pivotal musical moments from his long quest toward innovation – Nov 8 – 10
The spectacular Robert Carsen production of Mefistofele returns to the Met for the first time since 2000, with bass-baritone Christian Van Horn as the diabolical title character, tenor Michael Fabiano as Faust, and soprano Angela Meade as Margherita – Nov 8 – Dec 1
In London, the Southbank Centre Winter Festival returns with array of festive shows and performances including Rumpelstiltskin, pop-up shops and activities with a Christmas market and a winter ball – Nov 9 – Jan 6
Cap off your evening with a drink and an intimate musical exchange in the glow of the skyline with Nightcap: Curated by Gabriel Kahane where he will trace the evolution of art song from Schubert through the composers of today at the Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse – Nov 10
The 13th annual Monte Carlo Jazz Festival is centered at the Opera Garnier; performances are also held at the iconic Casino – Nov 13 – Dec 2
Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra will be at Opéra Bastille – Nov 12 – Dec 13
The New York Philharmonic unwraps a concert of Viennese musical treats filled with waltzes and polkas like On the Beautiful Blue Danube and Thunder and Lightning during The Blue Danube – Nov 15 – 17
Carnegie Hall presents the 8th annual Christmas in New York with Travis Cottrell, Denver & The Mile High Orchestra, and Marcia Wilder with The American Festival Choir – Nov 17
The San Francisco Opera presents It’s a Wonderful Life – Nov 17 – Dec 9
The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center presents Death and the Maiden which will explore some of music’s great masterpieces about life’s end including works by Schubert and the Russians Mussorgsky and Rachmaninov – Nov 18
Boston Symphony Orchestra will present Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 at Carnegie Hall – Nov 19
The Royal Opera House in London presents The Unknown Soldier / Infra / Symphony in C which consists of two contrasting ballets from Wayne McGregor and George Balanchine and a world premiere by Alastair Marriott – Nov 20–29
The 10th edition of Orchestres en Fête, the annual classical music festival, will feature classics and lesser-known contemporary pieces played by 50-piece national orchestras, as well as more intimate concerts by small Baroque ensembles in venues across Paris – Nov 22 – 25
The New York City Ballet presents George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker at Lincoln Center – Nov 23 – Dec 30
The Met presents Puccini’s Il Trittico – Nov 23 – Dec 15
The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater season at City Center in Manhattan will feature 2 premieres and 3 new productions – and of course, several performances of the iconic Revelations; this is the troupe’s 60th anniversary year and special new works include the premiere of the company’s first two-act work, Lazarus, inspired by the life and legacy of the late Alvin Ailey – Nov 28 – Dec 30
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Photo Credit: Rosalie O’Conner
The Boston Ballet presents the holiday classic The Nutcracker – Nov 29 – Dec 30
Visual Arts
The Jewish Museum presents Martha Rosler: Irrespective, a vast survey, from older works in video, photomontage and installations to newer ones such as the “Off the Shelf” series (2008–18), digitally composed photographs of books from Rosler’s library – Nov 2 – Mar 3
Amal Kenawy: Frozen Memory at the Sharjah Art Foundation in the UAE is the first-ever Kenawy retrospective will take a panoramic view of the artist’s full output, which grapples with social, political, and feminist issues, primarily from her home base in Egypt – Nov 3 – Jan 30
The National Gallery of Art will bring together 150 pictures Gordon Parks took between 1940 and 1950 for Gordon Parks: The New Tide, Early Work 1940–1950, which includes books, magazines, family pictures, and more, illustrating the self-taught photographer’s work with the Farm Security Administration, Ralph Ellison and the Office of War Information, among other people and organizations – Nov 4 – Feb 18
Showcasing the Italian Renaissance painter Lorenzo Lotto and his genius for painting people, is Lorenzo Lotto: Portraits at the National Gallery in London – Nov 5– Feb 10
Leonardo da Vinci: A Life in Drawing ($40) is the most comprehensive collection of Leonardo da Vinci’s drawings provides an intimate look at the mind and hand of the genius. 2019 marks the 500th anniversary of the artist’s death – Nov 6
Lévy Gorvy will present Calder / Kelly, the first major exhibition exploring the visual and personal affinities between landmark American artists Alexander Calder and Ellsworth Kelly. 35 paintings and sculptures made over a 50 year period will be on display, including notable pieces such as Calder’s mobile Black Lace (1947) and Kelly’s Three Gray Panels (1987)- Nov 9 – Jan 9
Alexander Calder. Red Maze III, 1954. Sheet metal, wire, and paint, 56 x 72 inches (142.2 x 182.9 cm). © 2018 Calder Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Courtesy Calder Foundation, New York.
This year’s Shanghai Biennale is called Proregress: Art in an Age of Historical Ambivalence and is an exploration of “art in the present as a poetic attempt to explore the combination of progress and regression in the global arena” – Nov 10 – Mar 10
Andy Warhol: From A to B and Back Again will be at the Whitney Museum of American Art and will trace the pop artist’s work as it evolved, through various mediums, over his career – Nov 12 – Mar 31
Rubem Valentim at the Museu de Arte de São Paulo will showcase close to 100 of the Brazilian artist’s paintings, sculptures and engravings. The self-taught artist’s work examined the political consciousness of modern-day Brazil, with an eye toward Afro-Brazilian and Indigenous religious history and symbolism – Nov 13 – Mar 10
In conjunction with the National Gallery of Art and the Peabody Essex Museum, the Getty Center in Los Angeles is staging the first major international exhibit of American photographer Sally Mann. Many of the photographs in Sally Mann: A Thousand Crossings, which tackle themes of family, mortality, memory and identity in the American South, will be on display for the first time – Nov 16 – Feb 10
West by Midwest at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago features more than 80 artworks in a wide variety of media, made by over 60 artists from the 1960’s through the 2010’s. Each section examines three overlapping forms of kinship between artists: practice, place, and people – Nov 17 – Jan 27
Focusing on the artistic output of a lesser-known O’Keeffe, Ida O’Keeffe: Escaping Georgia’s Shadow at the Dallas Museum of Art spotlights approximately 50 works—including paintings, watercolors, prints, and drawings—by Georgia’s younger sister – Nov 18 – Feb 24
The Met will continue a longstanding holiday tradition with the presentation of its Christmas Tree and Neapolitan Baroque Crèche. The magnificently lit, twenty-foot blue spruce will loom over a vivid eighteenth-century Neapolitan Nativity scene, enshrined in an abundant array of lifelike figures with silk-robed angels hovering above – Nov 20 – Jan 6
Syria Matters at the Museum of Islamic Art in the Qatari capital of Doha takes as its subject the extraordinary cultural heritage of Syria, illuminating the country’s key role in the artistic and intellectual history of the world. The exhibit includes over 120 objects, including the so-called Cavour Vase, which is the most spectacular example of a very small group of richly decorated cobalt blue and purple enameled and gilded glass vessels made in Syria or Egypt in the late 13th century – Nov 23, 2018 – Nov 23, 2019
Tate Modern Liverpool presents an exhibition on French painter and filmmaker Fernand Léger bringing together more than fifty works . Fernand Léger: New Times, New Pleasures explores his paintings, murals, film and textiles which were infused with the bustle and rhythm of the metropolis – Nov 23 – Mar 17
Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing presents a full survey of Qiu Zhijie in Qiu Zhijie: Mappa Mundi – Nov 24 – Mar 3
See other November 2018 Events:
— Travel
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