Lisbon welcomes the new opera and ballet season

Portugal’s two top performing arts institutions are completing the country’s cultural calendar for the 2009/2010 season with some of the year’s most important events. Lisbon’s main opera house, the famed Teatro Nacional de São Carlos is bringing nine opera productions onstage this year and 22 concerts performed by the Orquestra Sinfónica Portuguesa –seven of which at the Centro Cultural de Belém and one at the Teatro Municipal São Luiz. At the same time, the country’s main ballet company, the Companhia Nacional de Bailado presents 8 ballet productions at the Teatro Camões.
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Faces of Modernism

Fifty five distinguished artists from Romania, Bulgaria and Greece and 120 of their most representative paintings form the complete panorama of Modernist art in the three countries. This survey will be on display at the National Art Museum of Romania (MNAR) for two months, from October 1 to November 29, 2009. After Bucharest, the exhibition Faces of Modernism: Bulgaria, Romania, Greece. Painting 1910-1940 will travel to Sofia and then Athens.
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Cyprus’ Brazilian days

From the rain forests of the Amazon to the blissful coastline of Bahia and from the breathtaking cityscapes of Rio to the spectacular natural wonder of the Iguazu Falls, the spirit of Brazil spreads over the tiny little island of Cyprus for two months each year in a celebration of the uniqueness of South America’s biggest nation. This year, in October and November, the Brazilian Culture Month presents its sixth edition with concerts and recitals, films, book presentations, exhibitions and educational programs. Bemvido em Chipre!
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The dark side of sexual desire

The close relationship between sexual desire and the death instinct –Eros and Thanatos– in visual arts is the subject of the major exhibition Tears of Eros (Lágrimas de Eros), which you can visit at Madrid’s Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza from October 20 until the end of January 2010. The title of the exhibition, which features 121 works including paintings, sculptures, photographs and videos, is taken from the book by the French writer Georges Bataille, Les larmes d’Eros, and is based on a number of his ideas on eroticism.
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Deep Purple tour dates in Europe

More than 40 years after Deep Purple first started touring and making records, their multifaceted musical heritage not only lives on, it is continually evolving through projects featuring other musicians, and some of them are very young. In 2009 audiences across the world are still experiencing Deep Purple in their current formation as they are preparing to sow more musicals seeds on a November-December trek in 22 cities across the UK and another eight countries (Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden, France and Italy).
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Portugal’s art panorama in the 70’s

An overview of the artistic production of the 70's, a period that was especially rich for the history of culture and the visual arts in Portugal, can be seen in the exhibition 70's – Crossing Frontiers, which will be running for one year, until October 3, 2010 at the Modern Art Centre of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon. The exhibition brings together 200 works by 80 artists, originating from the Modern Art Centre José Azeredo Perdigão (CAMJAP), the Serralves Foundation, the Chiado Museum, the Berardo Collection Museum, Culturgest and several private collections.
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Guitar days in Wroclaw

Many consider it as the most attractive event in the Polish guitar life and one of the most interesting events in the world. What’s for sure is that the Wroclaw Guitar Festival has a uniqueness that stems from the fantastic diversity of the styles, repertoire and genres of the presented guitar music. The 12th edition of this fascinating event takes place from 21 to 29 of November in many enchanting locations of the beautiful Polish city of Lower Silesia, where you can enjoy live concerts of Al di Meola with his New World Sinfonia, Jesse Cook in his first European tour, Ulisses Rocha with Teco Cardoso and many other musicians of the highest level.
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Malmö’s Moderna breaks a leg

Sweden’s Moderna Museet, one of Europe’s leading museums of modern and contemporary art with a collection of high international standing, is getting bigger and greater. The Stockholm-based museum opens a branch in the city of Malmö in December 26 and to celebrate the grand opening presents its jewel on the crown: A collection of art of the 60s running until November 21, 2010, Belgian artist Luc Tuymans’ Against the Day exhibition running until April 25 and young Swedish painter Astrid Svangren’s new work until March 21, 2010.
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Picasso’s secret images

A selection of old nineteenth-century Japanese shunga prints with explicit erotic and sexual subjects that belonged to Picasso’s personal collection are for the first time presented in an exhibition that shows the clear parallels with many of the scenes depicted by the artist in his own erotic prints made between 1964 and 1970. The exhibition Secret images. Picasso and Japanese erotic prints at Barcelona’s Museu Picasso runs from November 5, 2009 to February 14, 2010.
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Art and Illusions

For the very first time in Italy an exhibition is telling the intriguing and spectacular story of trompe-l’œil, or optical deception -the story of the eternal challenge between reality and its simulation, not only in the context of painting but in the many different disciplines that have made it so universally popular in European art. The exhibition Art and Illusions. Masterpieces of trompe-l'œil from antiquity to the present is tracing the fascinating history of trompe-l'oeil, or the art of depicting something that is not real as though it were real, graces the splendid Renaissance rooms of the Palazzo Strozzi in Florence from October 16, 2009 to January 24, 2010.
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Sudan mission as never seen before

If you want to see one of the oldest African collections of objects from the Nilotic tribes that exist in Europe, then you have to visit Ljubljana’s Slovene Ethnographic Museum until the end of October. The exhibition Sudan Mission, 1848-1858 tells the story of Ignacij Knoblehar or Ignatius Knoblecher, a missionary, explorer of the White Nile and collector of African objects. The display is a continuation of the museum’s systematic presentation of its African collections.
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What’s the age of happiness?

Three years ago, Mark Titchner was nominated for the Turner Prize, Britain’s most influential contemporary art award. The work that won him the 2006 nomination was titled How to Change Behavior (Tiny Masters of the World Come Out), a sculptural installation which is a provocative hybrid that often combines new technologies with old techniques. This work along with 21 more by the British artist -light boxes, sculptures and video-installations- you can see until October 21 at the Hellenic American Union’s galleries in the central Kolonaki district of Athens.
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Murder and Manslaughter in Luxembourg

Literature and the media frequently confront their audiences with either true or false descriptions of capital offences, bringing to light the limits and taboos of human behaviour. While these stories quench a widespread thirst for sensation, they also inflame a public debate regarding the attitude to adopt towards murderers and the understanding of the motives underlying their actions. An exhibition at the History Museum of the City of Luxembourg is analyzing the phenomenon of violent crime and its historical and current facets and raises a number of uncomfortable questions. Visit it until the end of March 2010.
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Dochev’s industrial worlds

Peter Dochev’s name is associated with the birth and development of industrial landscape painting in Bulgarian art during the second half of the twentieth century. Commemorating the 75th anniversary of the artist’s birth, the Sofia City Art Gallery presents a retrospective exhibition aiming at giving a comprehensive idea of Peter Dochev’s work following his artistic evolution throughout the years. You can visit the exhibition until October 11, 2009.
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Opera season opening in Bucharest

The 2009/2010 season at the National Opera House in Bucharest opened early this year together with the 19th edition of the annual George Enescu International Festival with four of last season’s best opera productions (Enescu’s Oedipus, Verdi’s Othello and Macbeth, and Puccini’s Manon Lescaut) and one ballet (Swan Lake) in its programme running until the end of September 2009. For the next two months, October and November, the repertoire is rich with past productions you should see if you missed them last year.
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An Elixir for the mind and senses

This Fall, forget the grey mood of the season, get rid of your long face and try to enjoy art to its fullest. If you are in Helsinki, Finland, until December 6, a visit to Kiasma Contemporary Art Museum is a must. Just proceed to the fifth floor of the venue, lie back on pillows and let yourself be carried away on the flow of the images and music created by the Swiss superstar of international video art Pipiloti Rist, who presents her Elixir, a medicine to the mind that cares, nourishes and energises.
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Bratislava’s Photography Month

Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of communism in Europe, Bratislava welcomes the 19th edition of the Month of Photography, which is dedicated this year to the end of authoritarianism in Central Europe. The annual event spans over 40 group and solo exhibitions by photographers from Slovakia, Central and Eastern Europe. You can visit some or all of them in various galleries in the centre of Bratislava from November 5 until the end of the year.
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On board Titanic in Lisbon

Continuing its European tour, Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition presents a vast collection of artefacts dramatically rescued from the ocean floor, two and a half miles below the surface of the North Atlantic. The show, which opened in Lisbon’s Espaço Rossio in August is running until October 11, for those who want to know the story behind the legendary Titanic’s short journey.
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Cy Twombly in Gagosian’s Athenian virgin show

This fall, Gagosian Gallery, one of the world's foremost modern and contemporary art institutions, adds one more selling outpost in Athens, Greece. The new gallery marks further expansion of Larry Gagosian’s empire, who began with his first space in New York in 1979. With the Athenian addition, there are now ten locations worldwide, which span New York, Beverly Hills, London, Rome, and Hong Kong, and make Gagosian one of the few that can lay claim to a truly global reach. The new Gagosian in Athens kicks off on September 25, with an exhibition of new paintings by Cy Twombly entitled Leaving Paphos Ringed With Waves, due to run through December 19, 2009.
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Krakow’s American Dream

Celebrating the 90th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Poland and the USA, the National Museum in Krakow and the US Embassy in Poland are presenting one of the largest museum projects in the country encompassing several exhibitions and an extensive interdisciplinary educational programme. The project America, America..., running until the end of the year, is happening not only in the museum itself, but, first and foremost, in and around the city.
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Amsterdam’s top 25 live gigs this Fall

When you are travelling it can be really fun to go to a concert of one of your favourite bands that happens to be where you are. Amsterdam has surprisingly few venues for major touring bands to play, but the good news is that the major ones are quite good and relatively easy to reach when you are staying in the city centre. This Fall some of the world’s leading artists are performing in the Dutch city so prepare yourselves. We have selected a hot-list of the 25 live gigs you should not miss when in town.
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A jubilee year for the Hungarian Opera

With about fifty opera and ballet productions–eight in premiere and 5 revivals- included in the programme of the 2009/2010 season the Hungarian State Opera House celebrates the 125th anniversary of its inauguration and promises many more exciting years to come. Running until the end of June 2010 the new season offers a wide repertoire that satisfies the most diverse demands with stage productions which cater for the tastes of different generations.
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Posters for a socialist market

Marketing and advertisement is one of the fundamental tools of the market economy in capitalist societies that is used as a consumerism booster for commercial goods and services. Nevertheless, it was exactly that same tool which communist regimes in post-war Europe were using for exactly the same reasons in their state-controlled economies. An exhibition at the Hungarian Museum of Trade and Tourism in Budapest from October 6 to November 23, reminds us how commercial posters were used in the socialist period between 1945 and 1989.
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Russia’s finest theatre goes to Riga

Four of the best Russian theatre productions of last year go onstage this spring during the Golden Mask Theatre Festival that runs from 4 to 15 of October in the Latvian capital Riga. The festival, which offers a variety of theatre genres, from drama to comedy and from opera to ballet theatre, is addressing mainly the Russian speaking audience, but all performances have Latvian surtitles. Performances are given at the Daile Theatre and the Latvian National Opera House.
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Fifth season in Philharmonie Luxembourg

Over the last five years, the Salle de Concerts Grande-Duchesse Joséphine-Charlotte has developed rapidly into a venue for events that radiate far beyond the Luxembourg’s borders. In the 2009-2010 season, the Philharmonie continues to be a home for the many-facetted local music scene, while complementing its programme with great conductors and the best soloists, ensembles, and orchestras from the wide world of music.
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Boissonnas’ Mt. Athos photos in Sofia

A traveling exhibition dedicated to Swiss photographer Frédéric Boissonnas, whose work left a deep mark on the collective memory of the Greeks is making its Bulgarian debut on September 16. This display of a selection from the 400 photographs he took during his two visits, in 1928 and 1930, to the monastic communities of Mount Athos in northern Greece can be seen at the Sofia branch of the Hellenic Foundation for Culture until October 25, 2009.
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An exciting new season at Teatr Wielki

For over 170 years the Teatr Wielki (Grand Theatre) has been hosting Poland's grandest opera and ballet theatre, which continues its more than 200-year tradition, producing works by Polish composers as well as world classics. Lead by its artistic director Mariusz Treliński, a great stage director whose opera productions constitute highlights of operatic repertoire in Warsaw and overseas, Teatr Wielki presents an exquisite programme for the 2009/2010 season with 21 operas, 18 ballet and dance performances and more than ten concerts and music productions.
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Evenings of music at Bellapais Abbey

Every year, the end of the summer in the northern Cypriot town of Kerynia is signaled with a most prestigious international event, which gathers music lovers at the picturesque Bellapais Abbey, in the nearby village of Bellapais, where Lawrence Durrell spent much of his time writing. The International North Cyprus Music Festival is already presenting its 7th edition from September 16 to October 16, 2009.
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X-Dreams for the young

A festival by the young for the young. This is what the X-Dream Arts Festival is all about according to the organizers of the ARTos Cultural and Research Foundation in Nicosia. Running for a month, from September 10 to October 8, the event aspires to provoke the “X-Dream” imagination of young artists, by presenting three live music concerts, two theatre plays, a video art performance and an audiovisual show.
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Opera evenings in Cyprus

If in Cyprus and Francis Poulenc is one of your opera favs, you don’t have to catch the next flight to Paris to attend the performance of his signature work La Voix Humaine exactly 50 years after its premiere in the French capital’s Opéra-Comique. The Cyprus Symphony Orchestra will be performing this intimate, intense and intriguing one-act opera by the end of September in Nicosia and Limassol as part of the Kypria Festival. Greek Cypriot soprano Katerina Miná will be the heart-broken Elle.
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Lia’s Party Animals

The idea of man as a social animal that uses body language to communicate is central in the dance piece of Cypriot choreographer and performer Lia Haraki, presented as part of the programme of the Kypria International Festival by her group pelma.lia haraki in Larnaka (Sep 26), Limassol (Sep 29-30) and Nicosia (Oct 3-4). Haraki’s work titled Party Animals follows the relations that are developed among three individuals, who are invited to a party, as well as among the performers and the audience.
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A delicious art-e-choke

Two Cyprus-based cultural institutions join forces and present a group art exhibition titled Art-e-choke, featuring 35 works by young Greek Cypriot artists. The event, which runs only for three days, is hosted by the First Lady of the Cyprus Republic Mrs. Elsi Christofia and can be visited at Nicosia’s ARTos Cultural and Research Foundation from 15 to 18 of October 2009.
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New opera and ballet season in Sofia

The 2009/2010 season for the National Opera and Ballet Theatre in Sofia kicks off in a promising and ambitious way with ten opera and six ballet productions occupying the daily calendar of the year’s last quarter. Having exported its best production -Léo Delibes’ Lakmé- to Cyprus in September 2009, Bulgaria’s first lyrical theatre presented the programme for October, November and December 2009, which includes both older productions and new premieres.
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Eastern promises, western expectations

Right after the Fall of the Berlin Wall came down, Eastern Europe became a very sexy destination, but the glamour started fading away as the iron curtain started sinking into history. The International Network for Contemporary Performing Arts (IETM) focuses on this fact and organizes its Autumn Plenary Meeting in Vilnius with the theme Eastern Promises. The meeting takes place from 8 to 11 of October at the Menų spaustuvė (Arts Printing House) and various other venues in the Lithuanian capital (European Capital of Culture this year) and includes a very interesting artistic program of 25 theatre and dance performances you must not miss.
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Theatre in dialogue

It’s no accident that Dialog-Wrocław international theatre festival is taking place in one of Poland’s most historic place where Czech, Polish, German and Jewish influences have met. The city, which has been called Wratislavia, Breslau and Wrocław, has always been friendly to artists, open to what is new and tolerant to what is different. From 10 to 17 of October, fifteen theater productions from Poland, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Russia, Lithuania, Lebanon and South Africa will be proving just that.
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Goodbye Edmond

A farewell to a great Bulgarian contemporary artist who passed away so suddenly and untimely this year is paid this Fall at the Sofia Art Gallery. The tribute exhibition of works by Edmond Demirdjian is a good opportunity to have an encounter with the enormous positive energy his art was transmitting. You can visit it at the Bulgarian capital from September 17 to October 25.
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A unique Munch display in Dublin

An exceptional exhibition that should not be missed at the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin showcases forty prints by Norway’s greatest artist, Edvard Munch (1863-1944) from 19 September until 6 December 2009. The Edvard Munch: Prints exhibition at the NGI’s Beit Wing (Rooms 6-9), is the most substantial Munch print exhibition ever presented in Ireland. It is organized by the Hunterian Museum & Art Gallery, University of Glasgow, which hosted the show for three months, until September 6.
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Cyprus’ Film Fest celebrates fourth year

The fourth edition of the Cyprus International Film Festival (CIFF) is already here and for eight days, from October 30 to November 6, 2009, cinephiles in the Eastern Mediterranean island will have the opportunity to watch dozens of films from around the world that will compete for the Golden Aphrodite award and a cash prize that must be spent for the winner’s next project in Cyprus. Organizers invite us all to attend the screenings, which take place this year at the Pantheon Art Cinema in Nicosia.
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Red Carpet and Celluloid in Bratislava

When Bratislava's International Film Festival debuted in 1999, it arrived at cinema's darkest hour in Slovakia. But eleven years later, things seem to start turning around and the Festival is fast growing in self-confidence and significance. The 11th edition runs from November 27 to December 4 at the Palace Cinemas, in the Aupark Shopping Centre in Bratislava-Petrzalka. However, Slovak film production has a long way to go to have the same degree of success.
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Gay Film Nights in Cluj-Napoca

Being gay in Romania today is not as complicated as it used to be back in the communist times but still not easy compared to the rest of the western world. This October, Cluj-Napoca in the centre of Transylvania and a four-hour drive from Bucharest as well as from Budapest will be hosting the 6th edition of the Gay Film Nights, a festival that has known ever-increasing popularity since it was first appeared. Inspired by last year’s success, organizers are giving their best to turn this edition into a first class event, bringing movies from around the world to the charming Transylvanian city, the third biggest in Romania.
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Händel’s genius remembered

Paying a tribute to the genius of Georg Friedrich Händel, the German-born composer who left a deep mark in baroque music as we know it today, the Warsaw Chamber Opera has been organizing a wonderful festival that should not be missed if you are in the Polish capital from September 28 to December 19. The Georg Friedrich Händel Festival is kicking off its second edition at Warsaw’s Royal Castle and includes operas, chamber music concerts and recitals.
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