Morris Robinson as the Commendatorein Florida Grand Opera’s Don Giovanni.
Music: This weekend, Florida Grand Opera is running more like a repertory company than its normal mode of one show at one time. Its productions of David DiChiera’s Cyrano and Mozart’s Don Giovanni are running tomorrow and Sunday afternoon, respectively, at the Ziff Ballet Opera House in downtown Miami’s Adrienne Arsht Center. Cyrano, based on the Edmond Rostand play about the 17th-century French swashbuckler, poet and sci-fi pioneer, was composed by the American DiChiera to a French libretto by the veteran director Bernard Uzan (who helmed Madama Butterfly for FGO a couple seasons back), and starts Marian Pop as Cyrano and Leah Partridge as his cousin Roxane, the love of his life. DiChiera’s sweet, Massenet-influenced score is getting good reviews, as is FGO’s mid-20th century updating of Giovanni. It’s directed by the busy John Pascoe (whose Act IV of Carmen at Palm Beach Opera was very effective), and stars David Pittsinger as the Don and Jacquelyn Wagner as Donna Elvira. Cyrano bows at 8 p.m. Saturday in what will be its final performance; Giovanni starts at 2 p.m. Sunday and then heads to Fort Lauderdale for two shows May 12 and 14 at the Broward Center. Call 800-741-1010 for tickets, or visit www.fgo.org.
A scene from Cave of Forgotten Dreams.Film: The good news this weekend is that obsessive filmmaker Werner Herzog (Rescue Dawn, Grizzly Man) has a new obsession. It is the 32,000-year-old drawings on the walls of France’s Chauvet Cave and he has obtained rare access to the site to film a documentary on the subject, Cave of Forgotten Dreams. In 3-D, no less. OK, the visual effects gimmick is unnecessary, but the rest of the film is quite remarkable, as Herzog plays tour guide to these artifacts from the past, virtually untouched by time. These glimpses at the first artwork made by man – and precursors of cinema, according to Herzog – are awe-inspiring and much more conveniently observed from a theater seat than by going on the harrowing spelunking trek that he went on. Regal Delray 18. – H. Erstein
Kati Brazda and Barbara Bradshawin The Beauty Queen of Leenane.
Theater: When Palm Beach Dramaworks switches gears to produce a comedy, it had better be something that can stand up to the towering works of Albee, O’Neill and Miller. That describes Irishman Martin McDonagh’s gruesomely amusing The Beauty Queen of Leenane, the ironically titled tale of a plain, lonely woman who has a chance to escape her dreary village and move with her beau to America, and her manipulative mother, who wants nothing more than to thwart her. Mother and daughter are played by recent Carbonell Award winner Barbara Bradshaw and Kati Brazda, which only increases our interest. Opening this evening and running through June 19. Call (561) 514-4042. – H. Erstein