15 free and cheap events in the neighborhood on Sunday, December 18th, 2011…

Tomorrow and Sunday will still have the normal “Free & Cheap Events” post, but here are a few weekend highlights if you’d like to start your planning early:

On New Year’s Eve, the Metropolitan Opera will present the world premiere of The Enchanted Island, an original Baroque fantasy featuring music by Handel, Vivaldi, and Rameau, with a new libretto by Jeremy Sams inspired by Shakespeare.
On Sunday (12/18), they’re giving away a limited number of free tickets to a rehearsal on 12/28.

On Monday I had a post about the big news that the New York City Opera was leaving its home at Lincoln Center.
Given the interest it generated, I figured I’d mention two follow-up pieces in the New York Times that focus on the issues at hand, including possible complications for David H. Koch Theater [...]

A classical pianist who was attending a production of Hamlet at the Met (near Columbus and 64th) is suing the NYPD for an alleged scuffle with cops, according to The New York Post.  Aviva Aranovich filed papers with the Manhattan Supreme Court this week claiming that a hotheaded cop escorted her out of the opera [...]