Aug. 21-Nov. 9
Durham NC

The Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University is hosting "El Greco to Velázquez: Art During the Reign of Philip III" ncluding Juan Bautista Maino, Juan Sánchez Cotán, Luis Tristán and Gregorio Fernández. More than 100 paintings, sculptures and decorative arts will be on view, including seven works by El Greco, three by Velázquez, two by Jusepe de Ribera and one large work by Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens, painted during his 1603 diplomatic mission to Spain. Important loans will come from museums in Spain and five other countries; some works are traveling for the first time.

Nov. 20-25
ECU Loessin Playhouse

Le Malade imaginaire (The Imaginary Invalid) was Molière's final play, first performed in February 1673 in Paris. A satire of the medical profession and a comedy-ballet, or a comedy combined with song and dance, the play contains a good deal of farce and was written to amuse King Louis XIV. It is also a superb character study of a hypochondriac, or a patient obsessed with being ill, and it contains a brilliant social and political commentary on Paris in the 1670s. Many critics have even found a subtle but powerful philosophical strain in the work, and it is an excellent example of the stylized comedy-ballet popular in Louis XIV's courtly theater. Molière himself played the main role of the hypochondriac Argan, and famously coughed up blood during his fourth performance, dying later that evening in what came to be known as a bitter irony, given the play's subject of imaginary illness.

April 2, 2009
Wright Auditorium

The Russian National Ballet: Giselle. Village maiden Giselle loves Loys who is actually a betrothed nobleman disguised as a peasant. When Giselle discovers the deceit, her heart breaks in madness and she dies. Yet her love for Loys protects him form the wicked magic of the Wilis, vampirie ghosts of betrothed girls betrayed by their lovers.