Louisville Magazine

FEB 2012

Louisville Magazine is Louisville's city magazine, covering Louisville people, lifestyles, politics, sports, restaurants, entertainment and homes. Includes a monthly calendar of events.

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[ Circuit ] www.helpkosairchildrenshospital.com Smillie's Picks >>By Thomson Smillie Illustration by Bart Galloway Puppet show Sometimes an event makes you think: What a great idea! Increasingly, it is one of our town's smaller arts groups prompt- ing that feeling. Te always-entrepreneur- ial Bourbon Baroque has come up with the notion of a baroque opera — or, to be more accurate, a very long opera's ba- roque final act — performed at the Water Tower in conjunction with Squallis Pup- peteers. Te hour-long piece is by Jean- Philippe Rameau, the best known of the 18th-century French composers. While the entire masque/pageant/opera (it de- fies contemporary classification) is called Les Indes Galantes, the final act, and the part that Bourbon Baroque will perform, is Les Sauvages. Translation: Te Savages. America and the New World seemed as exotic to Europeans of the period as aliens would seem to us now, and the short, witty story is about a Native American girl wooed by three suitors: a Frenchman, a Spaniard and a Native American. Te biggest stroke of creative genius in the whole affair is the involvement of Squallis Puppeteers. Te group will create giant animal puppets to represent the stereo- [24] LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 2.12 types; the Frenchman, for example, is an oversized peacock. Color, comedy and a sense of the outrageous contribute to the storytelling, and a young cast of baroque singers and musicians will perform Ra- meau's lovely score. Squallis does a lot of school performances so it is good to have a chance to see its innovative work in a pub- lic forum, with two adult performances Feb. 24 and 25. Tickets are $20. Call 614- 7178 or visit bourbonbaroque.com. Just how merry a widow? Kentucky Opera is poised to present Franz Lehár's sparkling operetta Te Merry Wid- ow at the Brown Teatre Feb. 17 and 19 at 8 p.m. and 2 p.m. respectively. At the time of this writing, the silence emanating from the Louisville Orchestra dispute — from both management and the players — raises the ghastly prospect of this fragile master- piece with just one or two pianos in the pit. (It is simply asinine that the opera has been placed on an "unfair list" by the musicians' union because the orchestra problem does not directly concern the opera.) November's Te Marriage of Figaro worked only because the score is one of the

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