After the hectic season of Christmas and New Year parties it feels good to relax and ponder over plans for the coming months as well as ahead to summer. The stacks of brochures, flyers and e-mails urge me to do some planning during winter nights.

Metropolitan Opera Live in high-definition in Cineplex theatres – both in Toronto and Waterloo

Romeo and Juliet – January 5, Hansel and Gretel – January 26, Macbeth – January 12 and February 9, Manon Lescaut – February 16 and March 1, Peter Grimes Tales – March 15 and 29, Tristian and Isolde – March 22 and April 12, La Boheme – April 5 and May 3, La Fille du Regiment – April 26 and May 10.

Considering the quality of the production, world-renowned voices, and the comfort, proximity and prices of tickets – what an opportunity!

Stratford Festival 2008

After 34 years as Artistic Director Richard Monette is succeeded by Antoni Cimolino and a team of 3 artistic directors. They began their work of planning for the 2008 season way back in the summer of 2007 and with the new repertoire the changes are already evident. Stratford Festival is moving more toward Shakespeare and very classic plays: 5 plays by Shakespeare himself (Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, The Taming of the Shrew, Love’s Labour’s Lost and All’s Well That Ends Well), two more equally revered The Trojan Women by Euripides, Cesar and Cleopatra by George Bernard Shaw and more just as interesting. There is Fuente Ovejune by Lope de Vega, Moby Dick adapted by Morris Panych, two musicals which are family oriented and suitable for children, The Music Man by Meredith Willson, famous from its movie adaptation Cabaret. I am unable to comment on anything beyond since the Stratford 2008 brochure has not arrived yet.

The program has expanded to 11 plays including a lunch one-act comedy The President.

The expected Shaw collection features Mrs. Warren’s Profession directed by Jackie Maxwell with Mary Haney in the title role. The second Shaw play is Getting Married. I am especially looking forward to Mrs. Warren’s Profession, very controversial in its time and possibly interpreted in several different ways.

The Little Foxes is a play by Lillian Hellman starring Elizabeth Taylor in the Broadway production many years ago and Bette Davis in the 1941 movie. It is about family, greed and money in the South of the United States. The Stepmother written by Githa Sowerby in 1924 presents the issue of second marriage and family politics from the female perspective. It seems nothing changes with time.

The play I am personally looking forward to is An Inspector Calls by J.B.Priestley. Shaw Festival staged a number of J.B.Priestley's plays in the last 20 years, this one is the most frequently performed and I recall seeing it in 1997 in Palm Beach in Florida. It was a famous production from the perspective of the décor gradually falling apart in front of our eyes as the pretence of morality and stylish life in a prosperous family disintegrates. I wonder how it will be handled in Niagara-on-the-Lake.

Three productions are musicals: Wonderful Town is about New York City in 1935 and young sisters pursuing the dream. A Little Night Music with music and lyrics by Stephen Sonheim is based on Ingmar Bergman’s film Smiles of a Summer Night about mismatched couples gathered for a weekend in the country, all happening under Sweden’s midnight sun. Follies: In Concert – four performances only – is a celebration of the Sondheim musical of Broadway showgirls and the men in their life.

All the best in 2008!

Irena Syrokomla