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SLIDESHOW: Scenes from the Music School Festival Orchestra on Monday, July 11, 2011.

It’s always a welcome event to have the North Carolina Dance Theatre and the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra collaborate, but the first such program of the season appeared to have a third party involved — the audience.

Perhaps no other “spy for God” is as well known as the subject of Geffrey Kelly’s lecture: Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Kelly’s presentation, “The Costly Grace of Christian Discipleship in the Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer,” was the second installment in Week Three’s interfaith lecture series, “Spies for God.”

Many consider a week at the Chautauqua Institution a vacation, a chance for relaxation. For some, this comes in the form of engaging in social dialogue or listening to lectures; for others, it means watching the waves of Chautauqua Lake lap against grass and sand. For Alexander Gavrylyuk, a visit to Chautauqua assumes no less than performing in front of thousands of spectators hanging on every whim of his keyboard.

When the Rev. Joan Brown Campbell calls the afternoon Interfaith lecturer “one of the best lecturers of our time,” you had better pay attention. The aforementioned lecturer was Gary Dorrien, Episcopal priest, Reinhold Niebuhr Professor of Social Ethics at Union Theological Seminary and professor of religion at Columbia University. Dorrien has published a dozen books and more than 100 articles.

SLIDESHOW: Scenes during the Firemen's Picnic on Sunday, July 10, 2011.

Those who love Anton Chekhov’s “Three Sisters” understand that as time passes, the world we know fades into the past. In time, we ourselves will be gone, and no one will remember our faces or even our voices. The good news is that through the indelible impact we have on others, eventually, our lives will take on meaning, and the world will be a better place. At least, that is the famous prophecy made by Ólga, the oldest of the three sisters, in the final moments of Chekhov’s play.

North Carolina Dance Theatre in residence with Chautauqua Dance will perform its first seasonal collaboration with the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra at 8:15 p.m. tonight in the Amphitheater. From waltzes and polkas to a soft pas de deux, the evening will be less about the stories behind the pieces and more about the musicians and dancers fueling one another.

It’s thousands of years ago. Humankind is undeveloped, living practically naked in caves. Wealth is not measured in gold, but rather in nuts and berries — the only things that will keep your family alive. A neighboring cave houses another human, but you notice this human has better nuts and berries than you do.

Following last season’s grand Norma, the Chautauqua Opera Company achieved even finer results Saturday evening with a fine but under-appreciated Giuseppe Verdi work that represents a midpoint between the bel canto style of Norma and the full-out “music drama” Verdi and Wagner were to develop later in the 19th century: 1849’s Luisa Miller. While, it’s never been a crowd-pleaser like Rigoletto or La traviata, it’s a passionate story — full of melodrama, but also full of feeling — and the music is wonderful, culminating in a third act that ranks among the great single acts in Verdi’s huge output.

“Perhaps Chaplain Black’s spirit could best be described by the words that he gave to the president of Oakwood College … he said then, ‘For most of my life, I sought a relationship with God,’” Jane Campbell said in her introduction of U.S. Senate Chaplain Barry Black, the 2 p.m. Friday Interfaith Lecture speaker. Campbell is the former mayor of Cleveland and was a member of the Ohio House of Representatives. She currently serves as the chief of staff to Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.). Campbell is also one of the parishioners at Black’s Wednesday noon Bible study for heads of staff in Washington, D.C.

Sex, rivalry, secret identities, extortion, poisonings, sword fights and murder. Sound like a typical evening in Chautauqua?