OPERA

A GRIMM TALE The Metropolitan Opera presents “Hansel and Gretel,” its new English-language production of Engelbert Humperdinck’s fairy tale opera. Humperdinck’s treatment is based on the story of the same name by the Brothers Grimm. Humperdinck originally conceived of the work as a play (and an engagement gift to his fiancée), but later reworked it into a full-scale opera. It had its first staging in 1893 in Weimar, Germany. Mezzo-soprano Alice Coote, left, and soprano Christine Schäfer, right, play the poverty-stricken siblings lost in a forest where unknown menace lurks, and tenor Philip Langridge, center, is cast in the role of the witch bent on fattening the children and making a feast out of them. Conductor Vladimir Jurowski leads the Met orchestra. Friday, 1 p.m., through Thursday, January 31, dates and times vary, Lincoln Center, Metropolitan Opera, between West 62nd and 65th streets, and Columbus and Amsterdam avenues, 212-362-6000, $27–$295.

FILM FESTIVAL

OTTO THE TERRIBLE Film Forum hosts a two-week festival in celebration of Otto Preminger. The director, a Jewish Viennese expatriate, is considered among Hollywood’s earliest independent filmmakers, even flouting the strict censorship guidelines of the Motion Picture Association of America Production Code. Preminger’s oeuvre boasts noirs and pop-culture classics such as “Carmen Jones” (1954), a modern adaptation of Bizet’s opera “Carmen,” which featured an all-black cast, including starlet Dorothy Dandridge and Harry Belafonte. “Anatomy of a Murder” (1959), an emotional courtroom drama, stars Jimmy Stewart and Eve Arden, and “Bonjour Tristesse” (1959) follows a swinging widower named Raymond (David Niven), who falls hard for Anne (Deborah Kerr), drawing the scorn of his daughter, Cecile (Jean Seberg). The festival bows tonight with a screening of “Daisy Kenyon” (1944), a film noir about a love triangle, at 2:55, 6:30, and 10:05 p.m. Through Wednesday, January 16, dates and times vary, Film Forum, 209 W. Houston St., between Sixth and Seventh avenues, 212-727-8110, $10.50 general, $5.50 for seniors weekdays before 5 p.m., $5.50 children.

MUSEUMS

CANVASING THE CARIBBEAN “Infinite Island: Contemporary Caribbean Art,” an exhibit of more than 80 works created in the last six years, is on view at the Brooklyn Museum. The show features contributions from 45 artists who represent the complexity and vibrant nature of this culture. The art explores Caribbean societies through video, photography, print and drawings, sculpture, and installation. Highlights include selections by artist Polibio Diaz, who confronts the aesthetic of Greco-Roman codes in creating his black and “mulatto” imagery. Through Sunday, January 27, Wednesday–Friday, 10 a.m.–5 p.m., Saturday and Sunday, 11 a.m.–6 p.m., until 11 p.m. on first Saturdays, Brooklyn Museum, 200 Eastern Pkwy. at Washington Avenue, Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, 718-638-5000, $8 general, $4 students and seniors, free for children under 12.

THE MARTINI HOUR The Museum of the City of New York presents “Manhattan Noon: Photographs by Gus Powell,” a collection of about 30 recent works inspired by poet Frank O’Hara’s 1964 volume, “Lunch Poems.” Mr. Powell photographed New Yorkers during his own lunch break: He found the full range, from lounging construction workers to ladies rushing by in stilettos, all of them lit by the midday sun. Through Saturday, March 15, Tuesday–Sunday, 10 a.m.–5 p.m., Museum of the City of New York, 1220 Fifth Ave. at 103rd St., 212-534-1672, $9 general, $20 families, $5 students and seniors, free 10 a.m.–noon on Sunday.

VICTORY FOR CAPA “This is War! Robert Capa at Work” is an exhibit of the photojournalist’s work from the 1930s and 1940s. The show includes never-before-seen photographs and newly discovered documents. Highlights include Capa’s most significant images, such as “Falling Soldier,” from the Spanish Civil War, and his “D-Day” series. Through Sunday, Tuesday–Sunday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m., Friday, 10 a.m.–8 p.m., International Center of Photography, 1133 Sixth Ave. at 44th Street, 212-857-0045, $12 general, $8 students and seniors, free for children under 12.

THEATER

BATTLE FOR THE SMALL SCREEN “The Farnsworth Invention,” with a screenplay by a veteran television writer, Aaron Sorkin, and direction by Des McAnuff, recounts the David and Goliath tale that unfolded around the invention of the small screen. Featured actors include Jimmi Simpson, in the titular role of Philo T. Farnsworth, and Hank Azaria, who plays the president of RCA, David Sarnoff. As head of the radio broadcasting giant in 1929, Sarnoff senses the possibilities to come in the form of television and determines to secure control over the patents and licensing governing the new medium. Farnsworth, a science prodigy credited with inventing television’s key elements, is unprepared for the battle over intellectual property. Today and Saturday, 2 and 8 p.m., Tomorrow and Friday, 8 p.m., Sunday, 3 p.m., Tuesday, 7 p.m., through Sunday, March 16, Music Box Theatre, 239 W. 45th St., between Broadway and Eighth Avenue, 212-239-6200, $59.50–$201.50.

GREAT WHITE MONSTER Playwright Michael Gorman suffered a tragic loss when his brother, a fisherman from New England, died of a heroin overdose. He turned his experience into a trilogy of fictional plays, the second of which, “The Honor and Glory of Whaling,” premieres at the La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club Annex. “The Honor and Glory” focuses on addiction and recovery in a New England fishing community. The play is co-directed by the playwright and David Bennett, and actors include Al Joyce, Michael Kimball, and David Branch.

Through Sunday, Thursday–Saturday, 7:30 p.m., Sunday, 2:30 and 7:30 p.m., La MaMa e.t.c., 74A E. 4th St., between Second Avenue and the Bowery, 212-475-7710, $20 general, $15 students and seniors.

ART

AMERICAN MASTER An exhibit of seven paintings by Morris Louis spotlights his contributions to the development of color field abstraction. Louis was a part of a group of artists, including Kenneth Noland, that was sometimes known as the Washington Color School. Among the highlights on view at the Paul Kasmin Gallery are the stain paintings, or “Unfurleds,” as they were also named. The paintings feature deep voids at the center of the canvas and elaborate, poured stripes of color at the corners, radically shifting the viewer’s typical perspective, as in 1960’s “Gamma Omicron.” Other pieces include “Saf Dalet” (1959), above. Through Saturday, January 19, Paul Kasmin Galley, 293 Tenth Ave. at 27th Street, 212-563-4474, free.

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