Weekend stage forecast: Beethoven to beat the blues

Back on Oct. 4 – during a more innocent time, when we’d only been ravaged by one hurricane – The Florida Orchestra’s music director Michael Francis guested on our podcast, Arts Alive!

Francis ruminated on the role of a symphony orchestra in a community burdened with stress and worry.

“Our job is to be a haven. And our job is to just create a place where people can come and just get away from what’s going on around them. Which probably right now is something that’s even more important than ever before.”

He was talking, of course, about Hurricane Helene. But his words also apply to Hurricane Milton’s second round of destruction, two weeks after, and in a way to next week’s uber-important presidential election.

Forget about everything for two hours and listen to something grand and beautiful in a concert hall.

“To hear a symphony orchestra play at its best is one of the great miracles of humanity,” Francis said. “It is the most extraordinary thing to see these highly skilled, remarkable musicians playing infinitesimally precise music together. Which is designed for the joy, and the peace, of everybody.”

Part of Francis’ responsibility – aside from the conducting bit – is creating a season of programming that will appeal to both the classical music maven and the merely curious.

This weekend’s performances – Friday, Saturday and Sunday – scratch both itches simultaneously. The program pairs Beethoven’s well-known Symphony No. 5 with Richard Strauss’ Also sprach Zarathustra (Elvis’ in-concert intro music and the famous theme from Stanley Kubrick’s film 2001: A Space Odyssey).

“Those are the two most famous beginnings of any major piece of music,” Francis said. Also sprach Zarathustra happens to be the first piece Francis conducted with The Florida Orchestra, in 2013 (as guest conductor; he was named music director the following year). “It’s one of the great orchestral showpieces.”

As for the B-B-B-Beethoven, “We’re actually performing it in a rearrangement, a re-touching, a re-orchestration by Gustav Mahler. It’s bigger! Mahler added more instruments. He re-did some of the orchestrations. So it’s Beethoven, but sort of on steroids.”

Concerts Friday, Nov. 1, 8 p.m., Straz Center, Ferguson Hall; Saturday, Nov. 2, 8 p.m., Mahaffey Theater; Sunday, Nov. 3, 7:30 p.m., Ruth Eckerd Hall. Find all tickets here.

With Mark Sforzini conducting, the Tampa Bay Symphony performs Sunday (2:30 p.m.) in Ferguson Hall, in the Straz Center for the Performing Arts. The program includes La Gazza Ladra Overture by Rossini; Rhapsody for Flute and Orchestra by Pasquale Tassone; the 2023-2024 International Composition Competition Winner – Christina Condon, flute soloist; and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92 (there he is again!). Tickets are here. The symphony will repeat the program Nov. 8 at the New Tampa Performing Arts Center.

Palladium news

The two shows scheduled to re-open the Palladium Theater’s Side Door Cabaret have been postponed, again, because of ongoing hurricane cleanup efforts. Both Bryan J. Hughes and the Crew/The Great American Songbook and Dirty John’s Presents The Exorcist, a Cabaret will be rescheduled.

Concerts

Candy Dulfer performs Friday at the Capitol Theatre. Publicity photo.

Dutch jazz saxophonist Candy Dulfer, a long-ago Prince protégé and Pink Floyd touring musician, brings her band to the Capitol Theatre Friday. Tickets are here.

Onstage Saturday at the Central Park Performing Arts Center, Largo: The Joe Bouchard Band, featuring the founding bassist (and “hit years” band member) of Blue Oyster Cult, Joe Bouchard. Tickets are here.

Morgan Absher brings her Two Hot Takes Podcast Live show to the Capitol Theatre Saturday. It is one of the world’s most listened-to comedy podcasts. Find tickets here.

Tampa’s rescheduled Pig Jig, a for-charity BBQ and country music show, happens Sunday at Julien B. Lane Riverfront Park in Tampa. Dierks Bentley headlines the day-long outdoor event, which kicks off at 11 a.m. Tickets.

Sunday at 7 p.m. on the outdoor stage on the Warehouse Arts District Association’s ArtsXchange campus: A performance by Encore IV Big Band, under the direction of Bill Prang. It follows a 6 p.m. City Council Candidate Forum at 6. Find tickets here.

On theater stages

American Stage’s “Weird in St. Pete” closes Sunday at FloridaRAMA. Photo provided.

It’s the final weekend for American Stage’s latest off-campus production, the Halloween thrill ride Weird in St. Pete at the FloridaRAMA art experience, inside The Factory St. Pete. Read more, and find tickets, here.

The bound-for-bigger things comic drama The Boy Who Loved Batman continues through Nov. 10 at the Jaab Theatre (inside Tampa’s Straz Center). Tickets.

Next door at the Straz, at the Shimberg Playhouse, Jobsite Theater’s Gorey Stories continues through Nov. 17. Tickets are here.

Stageworks Theatre’s hastily-added encore performance of What the Constitution Means to Me (3 p.m. Sunday) is sold out. Theater management is proposing the addition of a second show, Sunday evening … if that’s something you’d like to see, you’re asked to email info@stageworkstheatre.org before 2 p.m. Friday, and they’ll see what they can make happen.

Your weekend stage forecast appears every Thursday in the Catalyst’s CREATE section. 

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