‘Porgy and Bess’
“Porgy and Bess,” the 1935 opera by George Gershwin, Dubose and Dorothy Heyward, and Ira Gershwin, is next up in The Met: Live in HD series, with a simulcast set for Saturday at 1 p.m. at Guild Hall. The new production, originated in London in 2018 by James Robinson, marks the first time the Met has presented the opera since 1990.
Eric Owens stars as Porgy, a disabled black beggar living in the slums of Charleston, S.C., who tries to rescue Bess from her violent lover and her drug dealer. In his New York Times review, Anthony Tommasini wrote, “As Porgy, the magnificent bass-baritone Eric Owens gives one of the finest performances of his distinguished career. And, as Bess, the sumptuously voiced soprano Angel Blue is radiant, capturing both the pride and fragility of the character.”
David Robertson conducts, and the cast includes Janai Brugger, Latonia Moore, Denyce Graves, Frederick Ballentine, Alfred Walker, and Donovan Singletary. Tickets are $23, $21 for members, and $16 for students.
Almodovar Film
“Pain and Glory,” the new film by the Spanish director Pedro Almodovar, has received among its many honors Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations for best foreign language film and best actor (Antonio Banderas). HamptonsFilm’s Now Showing series will bring the film to Guild Hall on Saturday evening at 6.
Mr. Banderas stars as Salvador Mallo, a movie director whose preoccupation with his physical ailments alternates with memories of his childhood in a secluded village, his first adult love in 1980s Madrid, the pain of breakup, his early discovery of cinema, and his drug addiction.
Anthony Lane, The New Yorker magazine’s film critic, wrote of Mr. Almodovar, “Yet now, summoning his strength and gathering his obsessions together like old friends, he brings forth ‘Pain and Glory,’ one of his richest and most somber films.”
Tickets are $15, $13 for members.
Fantasy Girl Bands
The fourth annual Battle of the Fantasy Girl Bands, a fund-raiser to support the education initiatives of the Neo-Political Cowgirls, will rock the Stephen Talkhouse in Amagansett on Saturday at 7 p.m. Women create new bands for the contest, rehearse one song, and take the stage to complete for the “mighty headdress.”
Nancy Atlas and Inda Eaton will host the evening, which will include a silent auction, a karaoke competition, dance breaks, audience participation, and a performance by spitnktn. Tickets are $25, in advance only, from the Talkhouse website. Doors will open at 6:30, and guests must be 21 and over.
Classic Country
Tennessee Walt, a.k.a. Gayden Wren, will bring a free concert of classic country music from the 1920s through the 1950s to the John Jermain Memorial Library in Sag Harbor on Sunday afternoon at 3.
A musical theater veteran, playwright, and member of the Gilbert and Sullivan Light Opera Company of Long Island, Mr. Wren cautions that his program “isn’t the country of Toby Keith and Carrie Underwood — it’s the older, purer country music that inspired them,” specifically, artists like Jimmie Rodgers, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, the Carter family, and Loretta Lynn.
LongHouse Benefit
The winter benefit for East Hampton’s LongHouse Reserve will honor Cindy Allen and Joseph Walsh on Feb. 26 with a cocktail reception, awards presentation, and dinner in Manhattan.
Ms. Allen, as editor in chief of Interior Design magazine, has served as a supporter of architects and designers, while providing a platform for the design industry. Mr. Walsh is a self-taught Irish furniture maker whose studio, which attracts artisans from around the world, is committed to opening new possibilities in material and form.
The evening will begin with cocktails at 6. The awards presentation and a conversation with the honorees will follow at 7. Tickets for the reception and conversation, which will take place at Hearst Tower, are $200. With the inclusion of a private dinner at the American Irish Historical Society Mansion, the cost is $750. Tickets are available at longhouse.org.
