Clark Art Airs Production of 'I Puritani'

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WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Clark Art Institute continues its broadcasts of The Met: Live in HD's 2025–26 season with Vincenzo Bellini's "I Puritani" on Saturday, Jan. 11 at 1 pm. 
 
This award-winning series of live, high-definition cinema simulcasts features the full live performance along with backstage interviews and commentary. The Clark broadcasts the opera in its Manton Research Center auditorium.
 
According to a press release:
 
For gorgeous melody, spellbinding coloratura, and virtuoso vocal fireworks, I Puritani has few equals. In the first new Met production of Bellini's final masterpiece in nearly fifty years, Charles Edwards makes his company directorial debut after many successes as a set designer. The Met has assembled a world-beating quartet of stars, conducted by Marco Armiliato, for the demanding principal roles. Soprano Lisette Oropesa and tenor Lawrence Brownlee are Elvira and Arturo, brought together by love and torn apart by the political rifts of the English Civil War, with baritone Artur Rucinski as Riccardo, betrothed to Elvira against her will, and bass-baritone Christian Van Horn as Elvira's sympathetic uncle, Giorgio.
 
To complement the opera's underlying theme of battle over governance, the Clark's Manton Study Center for Works on Paper hosts a pop-up exhibition of prints and drawings highlighting artists' representations of government in its many forms. The free pop-up display is on view from 11 am to 1 pm on January 11, prior to the broadcast.  
 
The Clark is showing a prerecorded broadcast of this production.
 
Tickets $25 ($22 members, $18 college students, $5 children 17 and under). Advance registration encouraged; capacity is limited. To purchase tickets, visit events.clarkart.edu or call the box office at 413 458 0524. No refunds.
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Williamstown Finance Committee Finalizes Fiscal Year 2027 Budget Proposal

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The tax bill of a median-priced single family home will go up by 8.45 percent in the year that begins July 1 under a spending plan approved by the Finance Committee on Wednesday night.
 
After more than a month of going through all proposed spending by the town and public schools and searching for places to trim the budget and adjust revenue estimates, the Fin Comm voted to send a series of fiscal articles to the May 19 annual town meeting for approval.
 
The panel also discussed how to appeal to town meeting members to reverse what Fin Comm members long have described as an anti-growth sentiment in town that keeps the tax base from expanding.
 
New growth in the tax base is generated by new construction or improvements to property that raise its value. A lack of new growth (the town projects 15 percent less revenue from new growth in fiscal year 2027 than it had in FY26) means that increased spending falls more heavily on current taxpayers.
 
The two largest spending articles on the draft warrant for the May meeting are the appropriations for general government spending and the assessment from the Mount Greylock Regional School District.
 
The former, which includes the Department of Public Works, the Williamstown Police and town hall staffing, is up by just 2.5 percent from the current fiscal year to FY27 — from $10.6 million to $10.9 million.
 
The latter, which pays for Williamstown Elementary School and the town's share of the middle-high school, is up 13.7 percent, from $14.8 million to $16.8 million.
 
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