Classical Music/Opera Listings

CLASSICAL

Full reviews of recent music performances: nytimes.com/music.

OPERA-FOR-ALL FESTIVAL New York City Opera continues to woo the neophytes it hopes to turn into regular patrons with its third season-opening Opera-for-All Festival, in which every seat in the house is . On Thursday the company's music director, George Manahan, will lead artists in highlights from the 2007-8 season, including excerpts from Bernstein's "Candide," Massenet's "Cendrillon," Verdi's "Falstaff," Mascagni's "Cavalleria Rusticana," Puccini's "Madama Butterfly" and Richard Danielpour's "Margaret Garner," which opens the company's regular season on Sept. 11.

The festival continues next Friday with "La Bohème" and on Sept. 8 with "Don Giovanni." (Both operas, performed in their entirety, will include "behind-the-scenes" video presentations.) City Opera Orchestra brass players (shown, above, at last year's festival opener) will play fanfares before each performance, and after Thursday's concert the East Village Opera Company (a band that plays rock versions of opera arias and ensembles) will serenade patrons during a lively reception in the New York State Theater lobby.

Opera-for-All events have been successful in previous seasons, with each performance selling out. The company will also offer a number of orchestra tickets (usually priced at 0) to every performance in the forthcoming season. (Thursday at 7:30 p.m., Sept. 7 and 8 at 8 p.m., limited availability for all dates, New York State Theater, Lincoln Center, 212-721-6500, nycopera.com.) VIVIEN SCHWEITZER

Opera

‘PUMPED FICTION' (Thursday) Operas inspired by headlines are clearly passé: This work, by the estimable composer John Eaton, touches on a subject straight out of your computer's Spam filter. Its heroine, Daphne, an aspiring writer trying to find herself, becomes the personal assistant of one Dr. Bloom, who declares himself, in a heroic baritone passage, "the leading manufacturer, distributor and patentee of penis pumps." As you might imagine, the libretto, by Estela Eaton (the composer's daughter), is heavy with double entendre: no opportunity is lost for references, subtle or otherwise, to size, solidity, standing or rising. But Mr. Eaton provides a striking, sophisticated score that proves that microtonality and the angular vocal and instrumental lines that typically evoke modernist angst can create manic comedy just as easily. The work is performed by the Pocket Opera Players. At 8 p.m., Thalia at Symphony Space, 2537 Broadway, at 95th Street, (212) 864-5400, symphonyspace.org; . (Allan Kozinn)

Classical Music

ARGENTO NEW MUSIC PROJECT (Thursday) As a prelude to this contemporary ensemble's season opener on Sept. 20, the violist Stephanie Griffin and the saxophonist Chris Mannigan play works by Bach, the Malaysian composer Kee Yong Chong and the Indonesian composer Tony Prabowo. At 7 p.m., Gallerie Icosahedron, 27 North Moore Street, between Hudson and Varick Streets, TriBeCa, (212) 966-3897, argentomusic.org or icosahedron.com; ; for students. (Anne Midgette)

? BARGEMUSIC (Friday through Sunday) Last week the big event at this floating concert hall on the Brooklyn side of the East River was the premiere of Alexandra du Bois's "Soleil sur Mer," for clarinet trio, and if you missed it, you have three more chances through the weekend. The companion pieces vary: Friday the bill also includes Debussy's Cello Sonata and the Brahms Clarinet Trio. Saturday and Sunday Debussy's Premiere Rhapsody replaces the cello work, and Messiaen's mystical (but meaty) "Quartet for the End of Time" replaces the Brahms. Friday and Saturday night at 8, Sunday at 4 p.m., Fulton Ferry Landing next to the Brooklyn Bridge, (718) 624-2083, bargemusic.org; ; for students; for 65+ Friday only. (Kozinn)

INTERNATIONAL CONTEMPORARY ENSEMBLE (Tuesday) This adventurous group celebrates the work of the French composer Philippe Manoury and presents the world premiere of his "Cruel Spirals," an ensemble commission scored for soprano, string quartet, flute, clarinet, guitar and percussion. It is based on texts by the American poet Jerome Rothenberg, who will read his work during the concert. The performance also includes Mr. Manoury's "Last," for bass clarinet and marimba, and "En Echo," for solo soprano, sung here by Tony Arnold, and electronics. At 6 p.m., Spiegeltent, Pier 17, the South Street Seaport, Fulton and South Streets, Lower Manhattan, (212) 279-4200, spiegelworld.com; ; for students.

(Vivien Schweitzer)

? MAVERICK CONCERTS (Saturday and Sunday) This concert series near Woodstock, N.Y., offers its performances in an open-backed barn that allows the sounds of nature to mingle with the music. Friday Alexander Platt, the series's director, conducts the Maverick Chamber Players and the soprano Patrice Michaels in his own arrangement of David Del Tredici's "Final Alice," inspired by Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland." It should be interesting to see what Mr. Platt makes of it: Mr. Del Tredici's original was for a large orchestra, and its sweeping, lyrical writing seemed to demand the heft and expansiveness of that texture. On Sunday the cellist Zuill Bailey and the pianist Simone Dinnerstein collaborate on sonatas by Debussy, Brahms and Grieg. Saturday at 8 p.m., Sunday at 3 p.m., Maverick Concert Hall, Maverick Road, between Routes 28 and 375, West Hurley, N.Y., (845) 679-8217, maverickconcerts.org; ; for students. (Kozinn)

MUSIC MOUNTAIN (Saturday and Sunday). Fifty years ago there were only a couple of string quartets of any stature; Friday there are enough to form the focus of a whole festival. Music Mountain, now in its 78th year, concentrates almost exclusively on quartets, often in combination with other soloists. The star of this weekend is the Shanghai String Quartet, which plays Haydn, Beethoven and Tchaikovsky Saturday, with Che-Yen Chen (viola) and Hai-Ye Ni (cello). On Sunday the group is joined by the pianist Yuja Wang in a program of Grieg, Schumann and Yi-Wen Jiang. Saturday at 6:30 p.m., Sunday at 3 p.m., Falls Village, Conn., (860) 824-7126, musicmountain.org; in advance; at the door; for students. (Midgette)

SRETENSKY MONASTERY CHOIR (Tuesday) The Moscow Sretensky Monastery Choir will perform Byzantine and Russian chants, folk songs and Russian romances in its American debut on Tuesday, the beginning of a tour to celebrate the reunification of the Russian Orthodox Church. The monks of the Sretensky Monastery (which was founded in 1395) were arrested by the Soviet authorities in 1917 and exiled to prison camps. This all male, a cappella choir was founded in 1994 after the monastery was returned to the Russian Orthodox Church. At 8 p.m., Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center, (212) 721-6500, lincolncenter.org; to . (Schweitzer)

? TANNERY POND CONCERTS (Saturday) In an old Shaker barn in a picturesque corner of upstate New York, the photographer Christian Steiner presents a series of intimate summer-season concerts. Saturday night the luminous and distinctive mezzo-soprano Vivica Genaux, a star of the early-music scene in particular, offers a program, accompanied by the distinguished pianist Craig Rutenberg, with a heavy admixture of Spanish composers, including Chueca, Serrano and Valverde. It's worth a drive. At 8 p.m., Mount Lebanon Shaker Village, New Lebanon, N.Y., (888) 820-9441, tannerypondconcerts.org; and . (Midgette)