The Ting Tings

The snotty English frontwoman is practically a personality type at this point in pop history; equally ubiquitous is the U.K. singles act. So the Ting Tings may have been predestined for success: They have an awfully good yowler in singer Katie White, and a priceless slice of sour-pop candy in “That’s Not My Name,” which went straight to No. 1 on the U.K. charts on its official release this May. Together now for just over a year (my, things do move fast these days), the Ting Tings first tasted stateside notoriety this spring when, like so many modern bands, they had a song (“Shut Up and Let Me Go”) featured in an iPod ad. The duo—singer-guitarist White and drummer-guitarist Jules DeMartino—recently released their buzz-heavy debut album We Started Nothing, which comes off like Elastica with a bit of restless-leg syndrome. They played the Glastonbury festival last month; now, they’re at Valentine’s. We have a feeling this one will be tight.

The Ting Tings play Valentine’s (17 New Scotland Ave., Albany) this Saturday (July 26). Tickets are $10, and can be purchased through Ticketmaster (476-1000) or at the door. For more information, call the venue at 432-6572.

A Festival of Chopin

Following up on last summer’s successful Leos Janacek festival, the Marcella Sembrich Opera Museum in Bolton Landing is offering A Festival of Chopin beginning this week. (That’s the real Frederic Chopin, photographed in 1848.)

Tonight (Thursday, July 24), there is a concert at the Hyde Collection’s Helen Froelich Auditorium (161 Warren St., Glens Falls) featuring the Davydov/Fanning Duo; Chopin’s Sonata in G-major and Polonaise Brilliante are on the program. Tickets are $20.

Performances shift to the museum for the rest of the week. Tomorrow (Friday, July 25) at 7:30 PM and Sunday (July 27) at 2 PM, a “dramatic reading for narrator, two sopranos and pianist,” titled Chopin and the Nightingale, will bring to life the relationship between Chopin and soprano Jenny Lind. Tickets are $20.

On Saturday (July 26) at 7:30 PM, there will be a gala recital with pianist Christopher Johnson, who will perform Bel Canto works that influenced Chopin—and Chopin pieces that reveal the influence. Tickets are $25.

For info about all performances, call the Marcella Sembrich Opera Museum (4800 Lake Shore Drive, Bolton Landing) at 644-9839, or visit operamuseum.org.

Waiting for Godot

The imagery has become iconic: Two men in bowler hats stand under a bare tree. Two men waiting, indefinitely, for someone who never comes. It is one of the simplest stories in theater, and one of the most complex. And, indisputably, one of the most groundbreaking.

Since it premiered in Paris in 1953, Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot has been performed around the world, in dozens of languages, in grand theaters, in warehouses, in prisons. Academic criticism and creative interpretations of the absurdist tragicomedy abound—from the political to the existential, from Freudian psychology to Biblical allusion.

At its most bare, Godot examines man’s perceptions of his intricate and incongruous experience on Earth, and it does so in one of the most poignantly simple and comic tales of all time. This is a play that changed the face of theater. And this is your chance to see it at Metroland’s Best Theater Company of 2008.

Waiting for Godot opens for preview at Berkshire Theatre Festival’s (Main Street, Stockbridge, Mass.) Unicorn Theater on Tuesday (July 29) at 8 PM and runs through Aug. 23. Tickets are $39 and $44. For more information, or to purchase tickets, call the BTF box office at (413) 298-5576.