Music: An honest-to-goodness vocal star is in town this week, and fans of Rossini’s comic operas will want to be on hand to hear her, when Vivica Genaux takes the role of Angelina, aka Cinderella, in the Italian master’s 1817 opera La Cenerentola. Genaux, who won early recognition in Palm Beach Opera’s vocal competitions nearly 20 years ago, has become one of the most important champions of the music of Johann Adolf Hasse, as well as Vivaldi and Handel, to which she lends her distinctive, darkly colored voice. For Palm Beach Opera’s production, which opens tonight at the Kravis Center, she’s directed by the Italian Mario Corradi, and stars opposite Rene Barbera as Prince Ramiro, Bruno Pratico as Don Magnifico, and Bruno Taddio as Dandini. The sisters are sung by two strong company Young Artists: Alexandra Batsios and Shirin Eskandani. Will Crutchfield of the Caramoor Festival conducts. Shows are at 7:30 p.m. today and tomorrow, and 2 p.m. Sunday. Tickets start at $20. Call 833-7888 or visit www.pbopera.org, or call the Kravis Center at 832-7469 (www.kravis.org).
This weekend is a rich one for chamber music, with the Pulse trio of Miami appearing for the first time in Palm Beach County at St. Patrick Catholic Church in Palm Beach Gardens (3 p.m. Sunday, free admission; call 626-), where it will be performing three new works in addition to Mozart’s Kegelstatt Trio and the Piano Trio of Aram Khachaturian … The Fry Street Quartet of Chicago returns to the Society for the Four Arts on Sunday afternoon with music of Haydn, Brahms and Britten (3 p.m. Sunday, tickets are $15; call 655-7226) … The Delray String Quartet welcomes pianist Tao Lin for a performance at the Colony Hotel in Delray Beach of the Franck Piano Quintet on a program with music by Hoffmeister and Zhou Long (4 p.m. Sunday, tickets: $30; call 213-4138).
Film: This has been quite a year at the movies for Abraham Lincoln. First he was depicted as a vampire killer ― a description not apparently grounded in fact ― and then came Steven Spielberg’s lofty, wordy personal portrait of the great emancipator. Now comes the third show to drop, a small independent film called Saving Lincoln, a look at our 16th president as seen through the eyes of his long-time friend and bodyguard, Ward Hill Lamon. Alas, Lamon was not present at Ford’s Theatre when Lincoln was ― spoiler alert! ― assassinated. What makes Saving Lincoln so visually intriguing is the way director Salvador Litvak uses Civil War era photographs as the sets against which his actors are filmed. Opening today and playing through next Thursday at the Mos’Art Theatre in Lake Park. – Hap Erstein
Theater: Appropriate for this weekend, Stuart’s Lyric Theatre is bringing back to the area actor/playwright Jim Brochu’s valentine to larger-than-life performer Zero Mostel in the one-man show that has already been a hit off-Broadway and has brought him numerous awards including South Florida’s Carbonell. In the course of an interview with an unseen New York Times reporter, Brochu takes us through Mostel’s life and career, including his Broadway triumphs, the low of being targeted by the Communist witch hunt of the 1950s with glimmers along the way of Mostel’s wit and his explosive temper. With masterful make-up, Brochu looks uncannily like his idol, but more importantly he captures the essence of the man. I’m no fan of one-person plays, but this is a worthy exception. Three performances today and Saturday. Call (772) 286-7827 for tickets. – H. Erstein
Art: A solo exhibition by abstract painter Dina Gustin Baker, whose career as an artist spans 70-plus years, is on display at the Cultural Council’s Lawrence A. Sanders Foundation Gallery in Lake Worth. The free exhibition is composed of original oil paintings by Baker, who enjoys painting in her studio in West Palm Beach, and runs through March 9. The Cultural Council is located at 601 Lake Ave. in Lake Worth. Admission is free; gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. For more information, visit www.PalmBeachCulture.com.