HubArts.com

Concert update

These shows were announced today by LiveNation...Mario Cantone at the Berklee Performance Center April 21, $40, on sale Saturday at 10 a.m.; the Strokes at Agganis Arena, April 25, $30, on sale Friday at noon; Linda Ronstadt at the Opera House, June 1, $38.50-$76.50, on sale Monday at 10 a.m.; and among several club shows, the gem is Toots and the Maytals at Avalon, April 19, $22.50, on sale Saturday at 10 a.m. Tickets are generally at the appropriate box office, Ticketmaster and www.teapartyconcerts.com, but there's always weirdness, for instance the Toots tix being at the Orpheum box office and not the Avalon, so call ahead to check.

Chocolate glazed folk fest

It's serendipity. Just yesterday I had two chocolate glazed Dunkin' Donuts to celebrate a really good verdict from the dental hygienist, and this morning I get the press release from Festival Productions with the dates for the Dunkin' Donuts Newport Folk Festival. And I haven't had a Dunkin' Donut in a year. The pastry/folk fest is set for Aug. 4-6 at the Newport Casino and Fort Adams State Park. It will be followed by the JVC Jazz Festival-Newport on  Aug. 11-13. Performer lineups will be unveiled in late April or early May, along with ticket sales deets.

The morning papers love the goat

The Globe's Ed Siegel loved the Lyric Stage's production of Edward Albee's "The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?" and so did the Herald's Terry Byrne. ... The Herald today is also all about Boston rappers Bomshot and Sullee. ... Both papers report that the Commonwealth Shakespeare Company will mount "Taming of the Shrew" on the Common this summer. ... The gay guy on the latest edition of MTV's "Real World" a local, and in a Herald interview, he's pretty funny. ... And the "Da Vinci Code" plagiarism case is going to court in London, putting turtleneck-loving southern New Hampshire author Dan Brown on the spot.

Carabinieri to raid MFA

Story of the day is this news from Geoff Edgers and Sofia Celeste in the Globe: Italian police will travel to Boston next month to "persuade" the Museum of Fine Arts to return ancient art they say was looted from their country. The splendiferously titled Colonel Ferdinando Musella, chief of the Carabinieri Special Unit for the Protection of  Artistic Patrimony, says he has not told the MFA - or other U.S. museums that he plans to hit - that he is coming. And the total number of objects he'll demand from the MGA is "many, many more" than the 29 previously cited - he actually pulls up the database for Celeste in his Rome office, revealing 116 pieces that may be in question.  All this comes a day after the Metropolitan Museum in New York agreed to return 21 artifacts, and amid a Rome trial involving a former curator and dealer connected to the Getty Museum in Los Angeles. MFA director Malcolm Rogers says the museum is eager to cooperate. But one former Met official tells the Globe the Italians have "smoking gun after smoking gun after smoking gun."

Concert notes

Announced today: the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs at the Orpheum, April 7, $25, on sale Friday at 10 a.m., and the insufferable Train, who will forever live in infamy after "Drops of Jupiter," at the same venue on April 25 with opener Brandi Carlisle, $25-$35, on sale Saturday at 10 a.m. Tix for both at the box office, Ticketmaster and www.teapartyconcerts.com.

Lyric announces anniversary season

Keith Lockhart will conduct Puccini's Madame Butterfly for the Boston Lyric Opera Nov. 3-14 as part of the BLO's 30th anniversary season, announced today. The season will also include Verdi's Un ballo in maschera (A Masked Ball) and Mozart's Le nozze de Figaro (Marriage of Figaro), both conducted by music director Stephen Lord in spring 2007. Subscriptions go on sale May 1, single-ticket sales in October. Details: www.blo.org or call 617-542-6772.

Hockney on Hockney

The banal creep Neil Entwistle wasn't the only Englishman drawing camera crews in the Boston area on Thursday. At least a couple of dozen journos and four or five TV crews turned up at the Museum of Fine Arts this morning for scones, a walkthrough of the new "David Hockney Portraits" exhibit opening Feb. 26, and an audience with the artist himself. I've got a short on the show in the next Improper Bostonian, but I don't think I'm spoiling anything to tell you there are more than 150 works in this terrific exhibit, spanning just over 50 years and every medium Hockney has worked in. Many seem quite intimate examinations of character, and some are just fun. This is an event.

The first oil painting Hockney ever sold is included - a 1955 portrait of his father - along with big, colorful oils done just last year. The subjects include everyone from the younger Hockney's handsome boyfriends  to the wrinkly W.H. Auden. A couple of wealthy art collectors pose for his brush on their sunwashed California patio. Hockney's elderly mother sits hunched outside a ruined abbey in a scarily bleak photocollage.  There are numerous self-portraits as well (below, right). "I do occasionally think it's time to have a look at myself again," he told the assembly, adding the laugh line that it's usually when he's depressed. He seemed quite upbeat, though, despite the walking stick and hearing aids. He cheerily dissed digital photography and spoke of exploring the space between people - seen here in perhaps a dozen large dual portraits, most clearly in the distance between "Mr. and Mrs. Clark and Percy," which also serves as the exhibit's logo (above left).

Nearly all of the sitters are friends, family, lovers. One of the strangest and coolest parts of the MFA event was that perhaps a dozen of them turned up, a cast of characters that might have stepped out of an updated production of an Agatha Christie mystery, or more likely an episode of "The Avengers." Oh look, there's the art publisher with the big floppy hat and the scarf, attended by the younger woman, a print dealer, who dotes on him. There's the jaded-looking photographer and his pretty daughter, who's got that teen-model look. And there's the striking, if rather strange looking, Gregory Evans in a blazer and blue-striped shirt, sitting just below a picture of his much-younger self in a blue-striped jersey. Just around the corner was another Hockney drawing in which Evans stands nude against a wall, looking like a pouty teenager. Some sitters posed happily for photos or consented to TV interviews  in front of their Hockney portraits, but, this being Boston, by the time I left neither Mary Richardson nor Emily Rooney nor Joyce Kulhawik had asked him to pose with that one.

("Mr. and Mrs. Clark and Percy" is presented by the friends of the Tate gallery 1971,  "Self Portrait with Charlie" is from the collection of David Hockney. Both are copyright David Hockney, courtesy of Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.)

The hero or 'The Goat'

The Lyric Stage Company is having quite a time with its production of Edward Albee's "The Goat Or, Who Is Sylvia?" First Patrick Shea withdrew from the production, which also stars Paula Plum, and then his replacement, Stephen Schnetzer, got cast in an episode of "Law & Order," apparently a break (and a paycheck) no actor can turn down. Then when Schnetzer arrived for rehearsals - blizzard! Anyway, they've sorted it all out, canceling six performances and adding four more to work around Schnetzer's "L&O" days. No way am I going into the details, but call 617-585-5678 to sort out your situation, or email BoxOffice@lyricstage.com. Tix are also at www.lyricstage.com.

Bits and pieces, updated

Real world duties are many this week, but a couple of bits of news: The Country Gospel Brunch series is moving from the Burren to Tommy Doyle's in Harvard Square, aka the old House of Blues space. Starting this Sunday the Sacred Shakers will return with their folk/country/blues take on gospel music. Bigger-name guest sets will resume in March. Details here. ... On Feb. 26, Boston Ballet dancers will present deTour, a fashion show at Mantra featuring music and a silent auction, all to benefit The Dancers Resources Fund, which helps dancers financially and otherwise when their stage careers end. Tix for the 10 p.m., 21+ event are $20, with $100 tickets that include an 8 p.m. reception. Call 617-456-6383. ... Today's concert announcement: The Black-Eyed Peas, with The Pussycat Dolls, April 29 at Agganis Arena. Tix, $35, go on sale Friday at noon at the box office, Ticketmaster and www.teapartyconcerts.com.

Schoenberg project

At Boston.com, writers Geoff Edgers and Richard Dyer take on Arnold Schoenberg and the BSO's upcoming concerts of his music, which have prompted more than 700 subscribers to turn in their tickets. The best place to start with the package - appropriately for the father of 12-tone composition - is something new. Edgers tries to convince you to give Schoenberg a chance, via a podcast interspersed with Schoenberg's music. It's like an audio version of a good newspaper column - funny, direct and accessible, three words not usually associated with the composer.