Sins and Grace, Enigma, and More: What's Happening in Classic Arts This Week | Playbill
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Sins and Grace, Enigma, and More: What's Happening in Classic Arts This Week

Find out what’s happening in the opera, concert, and dance scene in NYC.

March 23, 2026 By Natan Zamansky

Ted Sperling (Toby Tenenbaum)

From song cycles to variations, the classic arts scene in New York is never quiet. Here is just a sampling of some of the classic arts events happening this week.

MasterVoices presents a program titled Sins and Grace at Alice Tully Hall March 23 and 24, featuring the world premiere of a new song cycle titled SEVEN: A Cycle of Sins. Conceived as a companion piece to Gabriel Fauré's Requiem, which will also be performed, the song cycle features seven movements based on the seven deadly sins, each written by a different composer and lyricist. The artists assembled, and the sin for which they provided music or lyrics, include Michael Abels (lust); Will Aronson and Dolan Morgan (gluttony); William C Banfield and Michael R. Jackson (sloth); Jason Robert Brown (envy); Heather Christian (wrath); Ted Hearne (greed); and Gregory Spears (vanity). MasterVoices Artistic Director Ted Sperling will conduct the concert, which features soprano Mikaela Bennett and baritone Justin Austin as the soloists.

Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider will take the podium before the New York Philharmonic this week to conduct the orchestra in three performances of Edward Elgar's Enigma Variations and Richard Strauss' Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks. Szeps-Znaider will serve double-duty during the concert, also taking the stage as the violinist soloist for Bruch's Violin Concerto No. 1.

Performances continue at the Metropolitan Opera of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, in a sold-out new production directed by Yuval Sharon and starring soprano Lise Davidsen and tenor Michael Spyres. Performances also continue of Verdi's La Traviata, starring Lisette Oropesa; and Puccini's Madama Butterfly, starring Aleksandra Kurzak.

Louis Langrée will conduct the Orchestra of St. Luke's at Carnegie Hall March 26, in an all-American program opening with Charles Ives' The Unanswered Question. The concert will also include two works by Duke Ellington: Night Creature, and New World a-Comin', with piano soloist Gerald Clayton; as well as George Gershwin's An American in Paris and Leonard Bernstein's Symphonic Suite from On the Waterfront.

Violinist Alexi Kenney and pianist Janice Carissa well perform at the 92nd Street Y March 25, giving a recital of works by inti figgis-vizueta, Astor Piazzolla, Jean Sibelius, Michi Wiancko, Alfred Schnittke, and Benjamin Britten. The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra will return to the 92nd Street Y with pianist Jeremy Denk March 29, performing an all-Beethoven program which culminates in the composer's Piano Concerto No. 1. The program will also feature orchestrations of movements from some of Beethoven's piano sonatas and string quartets.

Contemporary dance company Hubbard Street Dance Chicago returns to the Joyce Theater for a two-week residency running March 24 - April 5. The company will perform two programs. In the first week of the residency, they will perform Nacho Duato's Gnawa, Bob Fosse and Gwen Verdon's Sweet Gwen Suite, and Aszure Barton's Blue Soup. The second week's program will include James Gregg's Within the Frame, Bob Fosse's Percussion IV, and Matthew Rushing's Beauty Chasers.

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