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With roots in tradition and an ear for new music, this company will make you rethink everything you thought about tap. Dorrance Dance perform at Spoleto Festival, USA. 

What could be familiar about a man in jacket and tie walking a runway in his jockeys? Plenty. Keigwin and Company at Spoleto Festival, USA.

In Michael Nyman's Facing Goya, the artist's head ends up in the worst possible hands.

If you're wondering what it's like to be Kát’a Kabanová, Garry Hynes' set at Spoleto says it all.

This is not the Messiah you know; it's the one you live with. In El Niño, the story is told through texts ancient and contemporary, from a new perspective.

In James MacMillan’s Clemency, three strangers visit Abraham and Sarah. The aging couple make them welcome and receive the news that Sarah will bear a son – to Sarah’s disbelief. They appear to be angels, coming to bless the couple. But as the travelers prepare to leave, they reveal that their next stop is one of condemnation. The people of the twin towns, Sodom and Gomorrah, will be destroyed.

Boston Lyric Opera opened a new production of Madama Butterfly on Thursday night, with gorgeous results. From the beautifully articulated set to the connection of the singers, the production was clean and inspired. While the music and the libretto go unchanged, different productions bring out different aspects of the well-loved opera. In one, Butterfly’s lost honor may be central to the retelling.

Boston Ballet’s Fall Program is a mix of three contemporary pieces, with music ranging from the Rolling Stones to piano and organ arrangements by J.S. Bach and electronica by Thom Willems. It began and ended on an upbeat, bookending a thoughtful (and thought-provoking) world première centerpiece.

Celebrity Series of Boston presents Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater every spring, just as the city starts to pop open and come alive. Like the host city, the company is full of life. And like Boston Public Garden down the street, the thrill is in the feeling of power underscoring what we see on the surface.

Just as it seemed that contemporary American opera had sworn off melody completely, composer John Musto brings us The Inspector. Paired with Mark Campbell's brightly comic libretto, Musto's score sweeps the hilarious plot along, punctuated by clever musical references and familiar tunes.

Boston Lyric Opera's production of The Barber of Seville looks, sounds and feels like a storybook come to life. Wildly improbable and completely over the top, the story recounts the antics of Count Almaviva and his quest to win the love of Rosina, freeing her from her vile guardian in the process.

In 1900, a relief ship arrived at a lighthouse in Northern Scotland's Orkney Islands, and discovered the three lightkeepers had gone missing without a trace. Peter Maxwell Davies' opera The Lighthouse takes this moment of history and explores the possibilities of what may have happened. It is a stormy ride of shifting identities, guilt and fear.

There is an electric guitar on stage at Boston's Symphony Hall, and it is not a Pops concert.John Harbison's Symphony no. 5 for baritone, mezzo-soprano and orchestra up-ends what we think of as a symphony, presenting the voice as an instrument and recalibrating the form.

Imagine a tattered red curtain, blocking the set but revealing several bodies, bound head to toe in grey, hanging from the ceiling by their feet. It looks like the home of a malevolent, human spider - its prey a silent presence overhead. This is the opening of Verdi's Macbeth, at Boston Lyric Opera.

In John Cranko's Romeo and Juliet, the story moves beyond star-crossed lovers and becomes a study of contrasts and conflicting forces. With set and costume design by Susan Benson, Boston Ballet's production of Romeo and Juliet adds layers of nuance to an old story, giving the audience much to ponder after the final bows.Don't be alarmed – if it's a love story you want, a love story you will get.

In the opening remarks of Boston Ballet's “Night of Stars” Saturday night, Executive Director Barry Hughson thanked the audience for filling the seats and concluded “we will not let you down.” The curtain then opened on an evening of artistic diversity so finely executed, there remained no doubt that Hughson spoke the truth.

Opera Boston, whose mantra is “Only innovative repertory. Only original productions” has created a new production of Berlioz' Béatrice et Bénédict for Boston. Seductively charming, the production's depth and complexity become apparent with time and acquaintance – just like any worthwhile relationship.This little-seen opera is sung in French, with spoken dialogue.

If you "don't get” ballet, you may be thinking too hard. In the words of one friend who went to see Boston Ballet's Balanchine/Robbins program with me on opening night, “you look past it and it appears.” While many ballets tell a story or convey a theme, George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins encourage us to appreciate beauty for the sake of beauty. We don't try to understand a moonrise, after all.

Donizetti's Maria Padilla is a canvas for sumptuous costumes, regal staging and bel canto voices. The royal court, the wedding finery and the homes of Spanish nobility add up to a visual feast. Even without all this, the opera stands up musically. While some operas benefit (or are saved) by a grand production, Maria Padilla passes the “in the car” test.

A friend of mine once said “life is ugly. I want art to be beautiful.” I would add to that “life tells us enough stories. I want ballet to let my mind breathe.” As much as I love the story ballets, I seem to need poetry more than prose these days.

From the opening glissandos of Britten's opera, we know this is not Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Where the Mendelssohn / Balanchine ballet is romantic, dreamy and reminiscent of an illustrated fairytale, Britten's opera borders on the nightmarish and eerie.

I took my nephew, a vocal arts student, to see Bach's Passion According to St. John partially so he could experience Boston Symphony and partially to introduce him to choral music – which is some of my favorite. I hadn't been to Symphony Hall since my childhood and was glad to see nothing had changed. One has the sense that generations have passed through the hall in a continuous flow.

By all rights, Agrippina should be a tragedy. It begins with news of Claudius' death and ends with a roll call of doom, with political intrigue, power struggles, infidelity and dysfunction filling in the blanks. The Roman Empire is rife with opera fodder, and operas are rife with tales of Greek gods and Roman heroes (and anti-heroes).