The Arts

The good news is that Chautauqua Theater Company is staging Anton Chekhov’s 1901 “Three Sisters,” one of the greatest plays ever written, through July 17. Further, good reports can be made of the chosen translation: by the late Slavic academic-turned-actor Paul Schmidt, it renders Chekhov’s then-contemporary idiom (the play is set in a stultifying provincial city in 1900) into plausible, listenable and unstilted American English, with only a few questionable decisions.

Carolyn Byham is hopeful about the future of ballet. “I think people are getting more and more interested in dance,” she said.

At 4 p.m. today in the Hall of Christ, three Opera Company Studio Artists will present the latest in the weekly Artsongs recital series. This week, the songs will have a distinctly modern feel. All but two of them were written in the 20th century.

Actors and instructors will be on the spot in front of audience members at today’s Brown Bag lunch as they work through Shakespearean text with no prior rehearsal. This week’s Brown Bag lunch, which begins at 12:15 p.m. today at Bratton Theater, will be led by Associate Artistic Director Andrew Borba and Peter Francis James.

Martha Dodd was a young, beautiful American living in Berlin in 1933. The daughter of the U.S. Ambassador, she cavorted in elite circles of German society and fell in love with top Nazi officials. Not until the first spasm of Hitler’s vicious executions did she turn against her suitors and become a Soviet spy.

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.

A pianist could play “Claire de Lune” today, and Claude Debussy would never hear it. An orchestra could play the “New World Symphony” next weekend, and Antonin Dvořák could never tell them what it was like to see buffalos roaming the prairies. When a musician can collaborate with a composer, it is a rare opportunity to deconstruct the imagination of a creative mind that was compelled to create a work of art.

The walkway in front of Strohl Art Center has become a work of art in itself. Chautauquans Lowell and Rebecca Strohl felt the outside of the recently constructed art facility needed an extra touch to make it inviting to passersby. They collaborated with Judy Barie, director of galleries for Visual Arts at Chautauqua Institution, and Mike Conroe, an architect from Buffalo, N.Y., to spice up the walkway.

“I am the Pablo bird, bird of a single feather, I fly in the clear shadows and the confused light.” These are the words of Nobel Prize-winning Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. A writer with a strong political opinion, Neruda was originally Neftalí Reyes but changed his name to save his father the embarrassment of having a poet for a son.

Thomas Schumacher is an award-winning piano soloist who has performed in concert halls around the world. But the most marvelous instrument, he said, doesn’t even make music. Schumacher will teach a piano master class at 10:30 a.m. today in the Sherwood-Marsh Studios and will stress the importance of engaging and educating the audience through that most marvelous instrument, Facebook.

At the Chautauqua School of Music, students often view recitals as valuable learning experiences. They are the perfect opportunity for these young musicians to perform a piece they have been working on in front of a supportive and knowledgeable audience. Because the students play what they have been working on in lessons, these recitals rarely have themes, but tonight’s recital will be an exception.

Imagination is a wonderful thing. When ideas exist only in the imagination, they have the potential to go anywhere. Be anything. They exist only in feelings and senses and thoughts and are completely at the mercy of the imaginer.

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.

Audience members wanting a historical look at and deeper understanding of Chautauqua Theater Company’s production of Anton Chekhov’s “Three Sisters” have to look no further than tonight’s “’fore-Play: ‘Three Sisters.’” Artistic Associate Claire Karpen will be leading the conversation.

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.