| 12 March 2010
Iceland Lagoon, by Lewis Kemper.
Art: From capturing firework-like sprays of red lava in Hawaii to the cool icebergs of Iceland, Lewis Kemper’s masterful photographs are some of the best that can be captured of the natural world. An exhibit of his dramatic landscape photographs, Capturing the Light, opens Saturday night (5:30-7 p.m.) at the Palm Beach Photographic Centre and runs through June 5.
The show’s theme illustrates the California-based Kemper's rules for photographing nature: “Be patient, be ready all the time and be prepared to walk away with nothing.” Patience with nature pays off in this series of brilliant photographs. The Photo Centre is located at the City Center municipal complex at 415 Clematis St. in downtown West Palm Beach. Hours are 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., Monday–Thursday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 1–5 p.m. Sunday. For more information, call (561) 253-2600 or visit www.workshop.org or www.fotofusion.org.
Bridge Road, by Wheaton Mahoney.
More photographs by Tequesta’s fine art photographer Wheaton Mahoney are on display at Mary Mahoney, 351 Worth Ave., Palm Beach. Wheaton, who is represented by Mulry Fine Art, is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design and her work reflects a strong knowledge of composition, lighting and technical ability. But her vision is defined by originality and a classical, Zen-like simplicity. Wheaton’s work will be on exhibit through April 30. For information, call Fecia Mulry at (561) 832-8224.
The New Honey Bee Cold War (detail, 2010), by Rick Newton.
For your contemporary art fix, don’t miss the Whitebox opening at the Whitespace Collection tonight, where Kara Walker-Tomé of Showtel fame has chosen four regional Florida artists to exhibit.
“Nicole Gugliotti, Bethany Krull, Rick Newton and Ryan Toth make artwork with an evident connection to nature, but nature is not their subject matter,” according to Walker-Tomé. “Rather than a traditional approach of depicting the beauty found in the natural world for its own sake, their artwork is meant to provoke a more abstract reading. To be sure, these artists borrow from the beauty of nature in the depiction of its forms, but each is utilizing those forms as interpretive material, and by employing this contemporary approach, they are achieving conceptual results.”
Tonight’s opening reception lasts from 7 to 10 p.m. with a $7 admission, including a complimentary drink ticket. Other public dates are by reservation only on Saturday, March 27, and Saturday, May 8, from 10 a.m. to noon with a $12 admission. Group tours are also available. Whitespace is a private museum showing the collection of Elayne and Marvin Mordes. Partial proceeds benefit the Community Foundation for Palm Beach and Martin Counties. For information, call (561) 842-4131. - K. Deits
Robin Wright Penn and Keanu Reeves in The Private Lives of Pippa Lee.
Film: What the Emerging Cinemas network, with local outlets in Lake Park and Lake Worth, is known for is bringing films of interest here that would have otherwise been relegated to DVD because they fell through the distribution cracks when compared to larger, louder studio fare. A case in point is the fascinating The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, written and directed by Rebecca Miller -- daughter of Arthur, wife of Daniel Day-Lewis -- based on her own novel. Robin Wright Penn stars in the title role of a 50-ish dutiful housewife to a much older power publisher (Alan Arkin), who has moved them to a senior community in Connecticut. The enigmatic Pippa finds herself slowly growing insane in her new surroundings, so she has an affair with an aimless convenience store clerk (Keanu Reeves) instead. Also in the cast are Winona Ryder, Maria Bello and Monica Bellucci, and still it only got minimal theatrical bookings. Very odd. -- H. Erstein
Steve Gouveia, Joseph Leo Bwarie, Josh Franklin and Matt Bailey in Jersey Boys. (Photo by Joan Marcus)
Theater: “Jukebox musicals” such as Mamma Mia! or All Shook Up are dramatically lazy and often sloppily assembled. No wonder expectations were low when it was announced that a musical was being assembled about Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, featuring their golden oldie pop hits. But Jersey Boys surprised Broadway, because first-time musical script writers Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice told the fascinating back story of the group, director Des McAnuff staged it with unusual theatrical thrust and the show walked off with the Best Musical Tony Award for 2006. The road company opens this weekend at West Palm Beach’s Kravis Center for a run-through March 28 and tickets are very scarce. But even if you are not a Baby Boomer reliving your teen years, this is a show worth the money. Call (561) 832-7469 and offer your first-born for seats. -- H. Erstein
Irina Dvorovenko and Maxim Beloserkovsky.
Music: The Festival of the Arts Boca comes to a close Saturday night with a dance-and-music program that features two stars from the American Ballet Theatre. Irina Dvorovenko and Maxim Beloserkovksy will join the Russian National Orchestra on the last night of the festival for the White Pas de Deux from Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, Splendid Isolation 3, a dance by Jessica Lang set to the Adagietto from Mahler's Symphony No. 5, and a dance to music from Bizet's Carmen. Also on the program for this Russian closeout are two surefire hits: Musorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition (in the Ravel orchestration) and the 1812 Overture (Op. 49) of Tchaikovsky. No word on what's being used for the cannon fire. 7 p.m., Count de Hoernle Amphitheater, Mizner Park, Boca Raton. Tickets: $25-$150. Call 866-571-2787 or visit www.festivaloftheartsboca.org.
Kishna Davis as Bess and Patrick Blackwell as Porgy in the Michael Capasso production of Gershwin's Porgy and Bess. (Photo by Sarah Shatz)
On Sunday down in Miami, a touring production of George Gershwin's great opera Porgy and Bess comes to the Miami-Dade County Auditorium for one performance only. This performance, which stars Patrick Blackwell as Porgy, Kishna Davis as Bess and Reggie Whitehead as Sportin' Life, comes from producer Michael Capasso, general director of New York's Dicapo Opera Theatre, who has a five-year deal with the Gershwin estate to mount performances of the 1935 opera, which marks its 75th anniversary this year. The touring orchestra of 18 is being augmented by Elaine Rinaldi's Orchestra Miami for the performance, which begins at 3 p.m. Tickets range from $25 to $65. Call Ticketmaster at 800-745-3000, or the auditorium box office at 547-5414.
José Maurico Nunes Garcia (1767-1830).
Closer to home on Sunday, Keith Paulson-Thorp's Camerata del Ré joins forces with the St. Paul's Episcopal Choir for a concert of music about life and death, including a rare performance of Missa dos Defuntos by the 19th-century Brazilian priest and composer José Maurico Nunes Garcia. Also on the program is the Judex movement from Gounod's now rarely heard Mors et Vita oratorio, and two pieces commemorating the Holocaust: Donald McCullough's Holocaust Cantata and Ben Steinberg's We Remember Them. 4 p.m., St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Delray Beach. Tickets: $15-$18. Call 278-6003 or visit www.stpaulsdelray.org.
presse3_large
Also on Sunday, two chamber music events: The Hugo Wolf Quartet, a veteran foursome from Germany, performs quartets by Haydn (Op. 20, No. 3, in G minor), Janacek (No. 2, Intimate Letters), and Brahms (No. 3 in B-flat, Op. 67). 3 p.m. at the Society of the Four Arts, Palm Beach. Tickets: $10. Call 655-2776 or visit www.fourarts.org. And down in Fort Lauderdale, the Chameleon Musicians group founded by Iris van Eck presents piano trios by Rachmaninov (No. 2 in D minor, Op. 9), Mozart (in G major, K. 496), and Debussy (his early Trio in G). 3 p.m., Leiser Opera Center, Fort Lauderdale. Tickets: $30. Call 954-761-3435 or visit www.chameleonmusicians.org. -- G. Stepanich
| 05 March 2010
Texas artist Marilyn Endres creates intricately detailed vessels and platters. (Photo by Katie Deits)
Art: The Palm Beach Fine Craft Show opened today at the Palm Beach County Convention Center in West Palm Beach for a three-day run that features artists from 28 states offering museum-quality art objects, couture art-to-wear, and handcrafted furniture. Clothing designers are also attending the show, which runs from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. today and Saturday, and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday. Tickets: $15, $13 for seniors; 12 people or more, $10; under age 12, free. Call 366-6000 for tickets or more information. -- Staff reports
Dancing Teapots, by Stephan Cox.
The autobiographical etchings, screen-prints and mixed media works by homegrown artist Sarah Nastri are on exhibit in a solo show titled Broken Landscapes, which runs through April 6 at the Eissey Campus Theatre of Palm Beach State College in Palm Beach Gardens. Nastri, who has lived in the northern part of the county since she was a toddler, studied at Palm Beach State College and in Los Angeles, and then completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts in printmaking from the University of Central Florida.
A monotype from Sarah Nastri’s Broken Landscapes.
“My art has always been a personal experience. I feel a close relationship to my pieces as they develop,” she said. “Family is a strong inspiration and consistent theme throughout my developing work. I combine landscape and architecture to portray surreal spaces. The use of imagery from new and old family photographs is incorporated through the use of various media to create balanced compositions.”
In her prints, she combines images of landscapes, architecture and photographs to create surreal spaces. By overlapping the images and using different colors, she creates texture in the flat surfaces of her prints. The theater’s lobby gallery is open Monday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. and at all performances. The Eissey Campus Theatre is located at 11051 Campus Drive in Palm Beach Gardens. For more information, call (561) 207-5905. – K. Deits
Renée Fleming.
Music/Books: The Festival of the Arts Boca for 2010 gets under way at 7 p.m. tonight with the Future Stars competition featuring talented middle and high school students, but the real fireworks begin tomorrow night when one of the world’s reigning divas, soprano Renée Fleming, joins the Russian National Orchestra for a concert of arias. Fleming will include not just the kinds of pieces she’s well-known for – there is a set of Richard Strauss songs, for instance – but verismo pieces from one-hit-wonder Italian composers (Leoncavallo, Mascagni, Giordano) whose work is well worth a second look. She’ll also sing Richard Rodgers (The Sound of Music and You’ll Never Walk Alone) and the Letter Scene from Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin. The festival, centered primarily at the Count de Hoernle Amphitheater in Boca Raton’s Mizner Park, lasts through the 13th and also features literary standouts such as Doris Kearns Goodwin and Richard Goodwin, Noel Riley Fitch and David Brooks. The theme of the festival is From Russia With Love, and includes performances of Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky (with the film), the Rachmaninov Third Concerto (played by teen wunderkind Conrad Tao) and ballet stars Irina Dvorovrenko and Maxim Beloserkovsky. The RNO ends the festival March 13 with the 1812 Overture of Tchaikovsky.
Kiri te Kanawa.
Fleming’s appearance Saturday comes just days before New Zealand’s Dame Kiri te Kanawa comes to Fort Lauderdale on Tuesday night for a recital at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts. Te Kanawa has scheduled art songs by Franz Liszt, Reynaldo Hahn, Gabriel Faure and Claude Debussy, arias by Handel and Vivaldi, and folksongs from England and France, including four of the Songs of the Auvergne by Joseph Canteloube. She also plans songs by Argentine composers Carlos Guastavino and Alberto Ginastera. Pianist Brian Zeger accompanies. 8 p.m. Tuesday. Tickets: $35-$115. Call 954-462-0222 or visit www.browardcenter.org.
Also this weekend: Palm Beach Opera’s One Opera in One Hour series continues at 9 p.m. tonight with an abridged version of Christoph Willibald Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice. The performance at the Harriet Himmel Theater in CityPlace features the company’s Young Artists singers. Admission is free. Call 833-7888 for more information. – G. Stepanich
Pierce Brosnan and Ewan McGregor in The Ghost Writer.
Film: Director Roman Polanski is under house arrest in Switzerland, unable to set foot in the United States, yet he has just made a first-rate thriller, The Ghost Writer, set largely on Martha’s Vineyard. Pierce Brosnan plays a former British prime minister, unmistakably patterned after Tony Blair, and Ewan McGregor is the eager-beaver title character, working on the politician’s memoirs, after an earlier ghost writer washed ashore dead. The McGregor character is soon in over his head, sorting out the accumulated lies in this taut film that harkens back to the heyday of Alfred Hitchcock. Like me, you may have issues with some of the plot points, but overall this is a smart, involving flick, worth your attention. Opening today at area theaters. – H. Erstein
E.J. Zimmerman and Christopher DeProphetis in Miss Saigon.
Theater: Actors’ Playhouse in Coral Gables seemed to have taken on too big a challenge when it produced the musical Les Miserables last season, but it was a crowd-pleasing hit that has raked in 12 Carbonell Award nominations. As an encore, it goes out on a similar limb beginning this weekend with its own production of Miss Saigon, the musical update of Madama Butterfly set in Vietnam during and after the United States ends its occupation of the nation. Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg provide an epic, Asian-tinged score, the show is loaded with emotion and romance, and then there is the matter of that helicopter. The cast includes many actors who are veterans of the show from national tours and Broadway. Call (305) 444-9293 for tickets. – H. Erstein
| 26 February 2010
Gezim Myshekta as the title character in Palm Beach Opera's Don Giovanni.
Music: Palm Beach Opera’s production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni opens tonight, and it could mark a real departure for the company. That’s because it’s secured the services of Stefano Poda, an up-and-coming Italian director who’s created major buzz with his recent productions, including a Thaïs for Turin that was remarkable for its costumes and set designs. Tonight’s cast (also appearing Sunday afternoon) includes the Albanian baritone Gezim Myshketa as the lecherous Don, Pamela Armstrong as Donna Anna and Julianna Di Giacomo as Donna Elvira; Saturday’s cast (also appearing Monday afternoon) finds Daniel Okulitch, Alexandra Deshorties and Michèle Losier in those roles. Bruno Aprea conducts. The curtain rises at 7:30 p.m. at the Kravis Center tonight and Saturday, at 2 p.m. Sunday and Monday. Tickets: $23-$175. Call 800-572-8471 or visit www.kravis.org or www.pbopera.org.
Harpsichordist Kola Owolabi.
The Bach Brandenburg Concertos are perhaps the most popular works the great German Baroque composer ever created, but it’s rare to hear a local performance of any one of them. Starting tonight, the Miami-based Firebird Chamber Orchestra redresses that omission at it presents the first concert of a three-year project in which the group will perform all six concertos. This weekend, Patrick Dupré Quigley leads the orchestra in the Third Concerto (in G major, BWV 1048) and Fifth Concerto (in D, BWV 1051); the harpsichord soloist for the Fifth Concerto is Syracuse University professor Olukola Owolabi. Kathryn Mueller will be the soloist in the Bach Cantata No. 84 (Ich bin vergnügt mit meinem Glücke), and the orchestra also will play the Orchestral Suite No. 2 (in B minor, BWV 1067). 7:30 p.m. today at First United Methodist Church in Coral Gables, 8 p.m. at All Saints Episcopal Church in Fort Lauderdale, 4 p.m. Sunday at Temple Emanu-El in Miami Beach. Call 305-285-9060 or visit www.seraphicfire.org. -- G. Stepanich
Woody Harrelson and Ben Foster in The Messenger.
Film: One of the most involving Iraq War films, The Messenger, manages to grip moviegoers without firing a single shot. It’s the story of two members of the Army Casualty Notification Service, those guys who arrive at the doorstep of those who have lost loved ones in combat. Directed and co-written by Oren Moverman, the film is muted in its emotions, which makes it all the more powerful. Woody Harrelson is not an actor we are in the habit of taking seriously, but he impresses here as the veteran messenger of death, earning him a deserved Oscar nomination. First seen here in late January, it returns today to area theaters. -- H. Erstein
The cast of Make Me a Song: (back row) Stephen G. Anthony and Patti Gardner; (front row) Julie Kleiner, Joey Zangardi; David Nagy at the piano.
Theater: Even those who are familiar with the musicals of composer-lyricist William Finn (Falsettos, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee) may not know many of the numbers in Make Me a Song: The Music of William Finn. Included in the evening are tunes from unproduced musicals, special material for obscure cabaret shows and songs that never met an audience until now, all with Finn’s signature offbeat rhythms and conversational lyrics. Area favorites Stephen G. Anthony and Patti Gardner head the cast at Mosaic Theatre in Plantation, opening this weekend sand continuing through March 21. Any songwriter who can rhyme “Israeli” and “ukelele” is OK with us. Call (954) 577-8243 for reservations. -- H. Erstein
Sunset is a 30 inch by 90 inch oil on canvas by Esther Gordon.
Art: Liquid Assets, an exhibition presented by Palm Beach County’s Art in Public Places, will offer a reception to meet the artists from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Thursday on the second floor of the Palm Beach International Airport. Paintings and photographs by 20 local artists will be shown through March 25. The artwork is also for sale. Featured artists are Maria Amatulli, Linda Botwinick, Betsey Chesler, Joel Cohen, Kris Davis, Gwen Eyeington, Esther Gordon, Cecily Hangen, Cynthia Kallan, Ann M. Lawtey, Marc A. Merlis, Melinda Moore, Susan Oakes, Hilary Pulitzer, Penney Seider, Barry Seidman, Jan Stein, Barbara Wasserman, Bruce A. Yodanis and Margaret Ziede. Works range from abstracted interpretations of water, such as Hangen’s acrylic on canvas entitled Aqua, to Yodanis’ Silver Dawn airbrush on an aluminum panel of the sunrise over the ocean, and Davis’ beautifully rendered Mangroves at Low Tide. And an oil-on-canvas 90-inch-wide triptych by Palm Beach Gardens artist Esther Gordon deftly captures the orange glow of sunset over the waves. For more information, call Elayna Toby Singer at (561) 233-0235, or visit the Art in Public Places Website.
In Palm Beach, Mulry Fine Art will be featuring a photographic exhibit of photographs by Joel Arthur Leavitt. The photographs are non-representational images of patterns and forms. A public reception is scheduled from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Saturday. Mulry Fine Art is located in The Paramount Building at 139 North County Road. For more information, call Fecia Mulry at (561) 832-8224, or visit www.mulryfineart.com. – K. Deits
| 19 February 2010
Anne-Marie Duff, Helen Mirren and Paul Giamatti in The Last Station.
Film: Fans of great acting have a new must-see movie opening this weekend in The Last Station, a diary-based fictional account of the final days of Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy. He is played with crafty charm by Christopher Plummer, but the film really revolves around his wife Sofya (Helen Mirren, giving the single best female performance of 2009). Tolstoy is a communist, in the pure sense of the word, and he believes that the copyright to his writings should go to the Russian people upon his death. Understandably, Sofya disagrees, feeling they should remain in the family. Their verbal battles and her attempt to seduce him into changing his mind forms the crux of the film. Impeccably directed by Michael Hoffman (who previously made Soapdish, a curious antecedent), the real mystery is how this movie did not make its way onto the list of ten Best Picture Oscar nominees. In area theaters. – H. Erstein
John Leonard Thompson, Matt Mueller and Dennis Creaghan in American Buffalo.
Theater: Life is a con game to David Mamet, whether in real estate (Glengarry Glen Ross), Hollywood deal-making (Speed-the-Plow) or the petty heist of a coin collection in his 1977 American Buffalo, now being revived at Palm Beach Dramaworks. As the three denizens of a rundown Chicago junk shop, Dennis Creaghan, John Leonard Thompson and Matt Mueller live by their wits and their words and it doesn’t take long to realize that they are impoverished in both. Still, Mamet’s fragmented, profane street poetry is mesmerizing and this three-way tug-of-war is the stuff of compelling drama. Directed by William Hayes on another stunning, albeit junk-strewn, Michael Amico set. Call (561) 514-4042 for tickets.
Violinist Soojin Han.
Music: Back in August, the Kronberg Academy began raising funds in Palm Beach County for its work training the great violinists, violists and cellists of tomorrow, a path it has pursued since 1993 at its home in west-central Germany. Tonight and Saturday night, the Palm Beach-based American Friends of Kronberg Academy presents Soojin Han, a 23-year-old Korean-born English violinist, who will perform two recitals with pianist Jonathan Feldman in West Palm Beach and Delray Beach. Tonight’s concert is set for the Lassiter Rotunda at the Warren Library at Palm Beach Atlantic University in West Palm Beach, and Han’s Saturday night concert is scheduled for the Ora Sorensen Gallery in downtown Delray Beach. On the program are the Sonata in F, K. 376, of Mozart, Fritz Kreisler’s Caprice Viennois, the Meditation from Massenet’s Thaïs, and the Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso of Camille Saint-Saëns. Tonight’s concert begins at 7:30 p.m.; Saturday’s event is set for 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Tickets for both recitals are $20, $10 for seniors, and free admission for students. Call 866-342-5777 for tickets.
Pianist Claire Huangci, one of the competitors in the Chopin contest.
If your thirst for Olympics-style competition hasn’t been slaked by this week’s events on the ice and slopes of Northwest Canada, the 8th Annual Frederic Chopin National Competition gets under way Saturday night at the Miami-Dade County Auditorium in Miami. Over the course of eight days, 21 pianists will play a great deal of Chopin as they vie for the grand prize: $20,000, a recital at Carnegie Hall, and automatic entry into the International Chopin Competition, scheduled for Warsaw in April. The pianists will face off in preliminary, quarter-final and semi-final rounds, concluding Feb. 27 and 28 with two concerts and six soloists playing one of the two Chopin piano concerti with Thomas Sleeper and the Frost Symphony Orchestra of the University of Miami. Tickets are required for the orchestral events, but all the others are free, and it can be a fascinating way to check out the state of the nation’s concert pianist talent. Competitors can be heard from Saturday through Thursday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day, at the auditorium. Tickets for the final concerts, which range from $18 to $38, are available from www.ticketmaster.com. Call 305-868-0624 for more information.
Pianist Vladimir Feltsman.
Speaking of pianists, one of the foremost Russian pianists of our time, Vladimir Feltsman, comes to the Kravis on Sunday night for a crowd-pleasing program of music by Beethoven (Sonata No. 8 in C minor, Op. 13, Pathétique), Haydn (Sonata No. 49 in E-flat, Hob. XVI: 49), and Musorgsky (Pictures at an Exhibition). Tickets for Feltsman’s 8 p.m. appearance are $25-$75. Call 800-572-8471 or visit www.kravis.org.
Jazz phenom Esperanza Spalding.
One of the most impressive newcomers in the world of jazz is the Oregon-born bassist, singer and songwriter Esperanza Spalding, who comes to the Duncan Theatre on Saturday. You might have seen her on the talk show circuit, where she wowed David Letterman, or playing and singing a killer version of Overjoyed for its composer, Stevie Wonder, during the recent White House concert in Wonder’s honor. After her Palm Beach State College appearance, you can catch her next at The Village Vanguard. Saturday’s concert begins at 8 p.m. Tickets: $27. Call 868-3309 or visit www.duncantheatre.org. – G. Stepanich
| 12 February 2010
You (2010), by Sibel Kocabasi.
Art: Next week, Upon a Time, an exhibition featuring collaboration between ceramic sculptor Brian Somerville and painter Sibel Kocabasi, opens on the Eissey Campus of Palm Beach State College in Palm Beach Gardens.
Kocabasi, a Turkish-born artist who received the Hector Ubertalli Award in 2006 and exhibits widely, creates paintings that “reflect the ultimate potential for beauty in art.” Yet, in these beautiful paintings she “protests injustice in its political, religious and environmental forms.” Somerville, on the other hand, creates in-your-face animals that anthropomorphically reveal humanity’s basic animal instincts.
Perdue Dog, by Brian Somerville.
The exhibit opens with a reception from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday in the Gallery at the college, which is located in the BB Building at 3160 PGA Blvd. Hours are Monday, Wednesday and Thursday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. For more information, visit www.pbcc.edu/artgallerypbg.xml or call (561) 207-5015.
Muriel Kaplan with her bust of Donald Schlenger (2003), former chairman of auto parts giant R&S Strauss.
Muriel Kaplan helped found the Armory Art Center in West Palm Beach, and has been both a teacher and student there. Faces of Humanity, a new exhibit featuring more than 70 of Kaplan's sculptures and drawings, opens tonight at the center and runs through March 6.
The works in clay, bronze, resin, polyester and charcoal were created over a period of 68 years, and many will show Kaplan's fascination with faces, especially those of powerful people. Included in the exhibition are portraits of political leaders such as John F. Kennedy and Yitzhak Rabin. "A portrait sculpture is a three-way affair – the sitter, the artist, and the material must all come to terms with each other if the sculpture is to be a work of art," Kaplan says. The exhibit is curated by noted artist and art historian Richard Frank and the opening reception runs from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. today. It's free to members and $5 to non-members. For more information, visit www.armoryart.org, or call (561) 832-1776. -- K. Deits
View of the Dunes Near Zandvoort (1662), by Salomon van Ruysdael, from the Goudstikker collection.
Opening Saturday at the Norton Museum of Art are three major exhibits, including Reclaimed: Paintings From the Collection of Jacques Goudstikker. A Dutch art dealer who died accidentally on a ship in 1940 while fleeing the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands, his collection of art was raided by the Germans, and only in 2006 were Goudstikker's heirs able to retrieve 200 of the paintings after a protracted legal battle with the Dutch government. More than 40 paintings are on display in this exhibit organized by the Jewish Museum of New York. Tickets: $12 adults, $5 ages 13-21. Hours: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday. called 832-5196 or visit www.norton.org.
Penélope Cruz in Broken Embraces.
Film: The great Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar has a muse in Penélope Cruz, who has appeared in such movies of his as All About My Mother, Volver and now Broken Embraces, which plays like a greatest hits of his cinematic obsessions. It jumps about in time, it juggles reality and illusion, folds movies within movies, plays with identity and ponders the nature of art. Almodóvar showcases Cruz at her best -- without her struggling with the English language -- as an office temp who becomes a prostitute, or else a movie actress playing an office temp who becomes a prostitute. Either way, it is a celebration of the storytelling skill that film allows, and it is highly entertaining. At Emerging Cinemas in Lake Worth and Mos’Art Theatre in Lake Park.
Michael Feinstein.
Stage: Soon to be seen on Broadway co-starring with Dame Edna Everage, pianist/vocalist/musicologist Michael Feinstein comes to the Kravis Center on Valentine’s Day with his tribute concert to Frank Sinatra. Rather than risk the inevitable comparisons, Feinstein endeavors not to copy Ol’ Blues Eyes’ sound, but to take songs he made famous and deliver them with new arrangements, often in styles that were not yet in vogue when Sinatra sang them. Backed by a 17-piece orchestra, The Sinatra Project sounds like a swinging show to see with your designated sweetheart. In Dreyfoos Hall on Sunday, at 8 p.m. Call (561) 832-7469. – H. Erstein
Joshua Bell.
Music: The great American violinist Joshua Bell, a frequent seasonal guest, returns to the area Monday with another frequent guest, pianist Jeremy Denk. The two will be in recital at the Broward Center, where their program includes the Ravel Violin Sonata (something of a favorite of touring violinists this year), and sonatas by Grieg (No. 3 in C minor, Op. 45), Schumann (No. 1 in A minor, Op. 105), and Bach (No. 4 in C minor, BWV 1017). The concert begins at 8 p.m. in the Broward Center in downtown Fort Lauderdale. Tickets are $35-$75. Call 954-462-0222 or visit www.browardcenter.org.
The Delray String Quartet, which played three concerts last week, plays the same program Saturday afternoon in its first-ever appearance in West Palm Beach. Joined by violinist Megan McClendon at second violin, the Delrays will play music by Haydn (Quartet in D, Op. 76, No. 5), Alexander Glazunov (No. 5 in D minor, Op. 70) and the Lullaby of George Gershwin, written in 1919 when the composer was barely into his 20s. The concert begins at 4 p.m. Saturday in the Persson Recital Hall on the campus of Palm Beach Atlantic University. Tickets: $20, $10 for students. Call 561-213-4138 or visit www.delraystringquartet.com.
Alessio Bax.
On the symphony front, Samuel Barber is getting a lot of attention this week, first with two performances of his Cello Concerto with Sol Gabetta and the Detroit Symphony (4 p.m. Sunday, Arsht Center), and this Sunday with the Boca Raton Symphonia, where Barber's Capricorn Concerto, named for the New York house where he lived, is on the program. Conductor Alexander Platt and the Boca orchestra also will celebrate the 200th birthday of Frederic Chopin with a performance of his Piano Concerto No. 2 (in F minor, Op. 11), played by the fine Italian pianist Alessio Bax. Rounding out the concert will be the Symphony No. 31 (in D, K. 297, Paris) of Mozart. 2:30 p.m., Roberts Theater, St. Andrew's School, Boca Raton. Tickets: $29-$49. Call 561-376-3848 or visit www.bocasymphonia.org.
And the Palm Beach Symphony, which last week accompanied rising young pianists in three concerti, on Tuesday features its own musicians in a four-concerto outing at Palm Beach's Bethesda-by-the-Sea Episcopal Church. Beth Larson will perform the solo part in the Piccolo Concerto (RV 444) of Vivaldi, and trumpeter Brian Stanley will play the familiar Haydn Trumpet Concerto (in E-flat, Hob.VII: 1). Bethesda organist Hal Pysher takes the console for the Poulenc Organ Concerto (in G minor) and the evening concludes with the Marimba Concerto of the underappreciated American composer Paul Creston, played by Michael Launius. Also programmed are excerpts from Handel's Water Music. 7 p.m. Tickets: $50. Call 655-2657 or visit www.palmbeachsymphony.org.
Willie Nelson.
On the pop music scene, Willie Nelson stops by the Sunset Cove Amphitheater on Saturday night for a concert that no doubt will include favorites from his deep catalog, including Crazy and Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain. Nelson has been suffering from carpal tunnel syndrome in recent days, according to his Website, but as of Friday, the concert was still on. Tickets: $49.50-$59.50. Visit www.ticketmaster.com or call 1-800-745-3000.
The Tannahill Weavers.
And Win Blodgett's Live Arts Florida series continues this weekend with Scotland's Tannahill Weavers, a much-admired quintet that has been playing traditional Scottish and Celtic music (Farewell to Fiunary, The Geese in the Bog) since 1976. 8 p.m. Sunday, Wellington Community High School Theatre. Tickets: $25-$30. Call 1-888-841-ARTS or visit www.livearts.org. -- G. Stepanich
