Clark Art Airs Production of 'I Puritani'

08:16AM / Wednesday, January 07, 2026Print Story | Email Story

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 Select Board Evaluates Town Manager

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
05:39AM / Wednesday, October 28, 2026

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — In 2022, the town still was recovering from the twin blows of a global pandemic and a lawsuit that exposed disturbing allegations against the town's police department.

The latter ultimately led to the resignation of the police chief and the town manager. To replace the manager, the Select Board at the time turned to Robert Menicocci.

Menicocci represented a break in style from his immediate predecessor, who was a more prominent voice in town government. That prominence, in part, was a product of the times: When town boards and committees were not meeting in-person and access to town hall itself was limited at the height of the pandemic, the manager's voice in Zoom meetings was more front and center.

In his four years in the corner office, Menicocci has helped shepherd the police department on its path to certification and helped the town weather the fiscal storm of skyrocketing costs linked to inflation – particularly sharp increases in the cost of health insurance that hit hard for a labor-intensive endeavor like municipal government. All the while, he has been a little more taciturn, while always willing to participate, when appropriate, with responsive answers in discussions of the Select Board and Finance Committee.

On Monday, the current Select Board – completely turned over from the 2022 edition – pushed Menicocci to be more of a cheerleader for the town.

"Do you see your role more as a behind-the-scenes guy and our role is to be out in public?" board member Matthew Neely asked Menicocci during the board's review of the manager's job performance. "Or is there more of a role for you in that? So many people, if I say your name, they're like, ‘Who?'

"I would have assumed your role would be more public facing as well, and more, for lack of a better word, leading the charge as opposed to running day-to-day operations. I feel you're strong running day-to-day. But something we all wish is we had a little more of a proactive [manager] …. Since we need development, need all these things in town so much. … I'd love to see more outward energy, I guess.

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