Hot Tickets

But don't give up. While we can't detail every cultural event of the season for you here (check into each issue's Calendar section for that), we can provide a guide to some of the newest, most exciting, biggest and splashiest shows and events coming up. Take it a month at a time and you'll make it through, with a renewed appreciation for all the enriching experiences the area has to offer.

November

The season begins with a celebration of the Naples Philharmonic Orchestra's 20th anniversary year. Frequent Met star Richard Leech sings opera arias and the NPO premieres a new Te Deum written especially for the occasion by Steven Reineke. That's Nov. 2 at the Phil ... The Southwest Florida Symphony also unveils its season Nov. 2, with a celebration of the 20th anniversary of concertmaster Reiko Niiya. On the program for this one: Scheherazade.

For a musical experience of a different kind, the Broadway Palm Dinner Theatre presents Frank Wildhorn and Leslie Bricusse's version of the classic good-and-evil story, Jekyll & Hyde, through Nov. 23. It's melodrama to the max, if you're in the mood.

Theatre Conspiracy, at the Foulds Theater, takes an opposite tack with the wildly crazy Wonder of the World by David Lindsay-Abaire, onstage Nov. 21-Dec. 8. It's the tale of an unhappy wife leaving home for Niagara Falls and her encounters with a variety of eccentric characters; "outrageous" is the word most often used to describe the play, as it was with the writer's earlier work, Fuddy Meers. And the Cultural Park Theatre Company in Cape Coral offers a Southwest Florida premiere of Children of Eden by composer Stephen Schwartz (Godspell) and John Caird; this one centers around the story of Noah's Ark, but there's relevance to contemporary family problems, too, even if they don't involve major flooding. Onstage Nov. 8-24.

Several shows are worth seeing at the Naples Museum of Art this month. You can view lithographs, etchings and aquatints by modern masters Picasso, Braque and Leger; you can contemplate growing older gracefully through the photographic exhibition Wise Women, offering glimpses of Sandra Day O'Connor, Jane Goodall, Judi Dench, and others as captured by Joyce Tenneson; and you can also catch woodcuts by Helen Frankenthaler, screenprints by Jasper Johns and video art by Nam June Paik. You may need to visit twice.

December

I've always had a soft spot in my heart for the Christmas classic Miracle on 34th Street, and Broadway Palm offers the musical version of the tale, Here's Love, with songs by Meredith Willson, through Jan. 4. Lots of nostalgia there. For a play of more recent vintage, I'd head to the Phil for the Olivier Award winner Stones in His Pockets, a big hit in London and on Broadway. Two versatile actors essay 15 characters in this story of an Irish village in upheaval during the filming of a Hollywood movie there. The New York Daily News called it "a joyful, uproarious evening." Onstage Dec. 27-29.

Also at the Phil: For the first time, Miami City Ballet's Edward Villella will present all four pieces comprising The Neighborhood Ballroom. From quick step to mambo, Ballroom tells the story of 20th-century popular dance. One performance only, Dec. 11.

January

The season really takes off this month. At the Phil, the NPO adds a major American symphony to its repertoire; fittingly, it's by Aaron Copland. His Symphony No. 3 includes the stirring and oft-heard Fanfare for the Common Man. That's Jan. 9-11.

Also at the Phil this month: renowned tenor José Carreras makes his Southwest Florida debut, Jan. 19. Carreras has won praise from critics, international audiences and his fellows among the Three Tenors; he's one of the very best. And the recent Broadway hit (and Pulitzer Prize winner as well) Proof bows at the Phil starting Jan. 31. By David Auburn, it's the story of a young woman struggling to interpret her father's brilliant mathematical work and his accompanying madness-and what it means for her.

At the Sugden, the Naples Players bring to life one of those heart-warming intergenerational plays that tug at the heart and evoke laughter at the same time, Over the River and Through the Woods. The Joe DiPietro hit is turning up at theaters all over these days with its story of a young Italian man and his relationship with his aging grandparents. Onstage Jan. 15-Feb. 8. The Naples Dinner Theatre revives the Leonard Bernstein-Stephen Sondheim classic West Side Story Jan. 30-March 9, offering one of the loveliest Broadway scores ever written.

Eckert Fine Art brings environmental artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude to town this month, so you can view the drawings, collages and scale models for their latest two projects: The Gates, a Project for Central Park (11,000 gates will be spread over 23 miles around the park) and Over the River, A Project for the Arkansas River, State of Colorado, which will suspend fabric panels over the rushing waters there in the year 2004. The duo will lecture Jan. 29 at Edison Community College in Fort Myers; the Eckert show opens Jan. 30.

And you can catch some of tomorrow's finest young ballet artists today when 12 youthful dancers from the American Ballet Theater's Studio Company pirouette into Schein Hall at BIG Arts on Sanibel, Jan. 11. These dancers train with ABT for two years before joining the main company there or other leading companies around the world.

February

Another play about troubled Irish, Martin McDonagh's The Beauty Queen of Leenane, takes to the Tobye Studio at Sugden Community Theatre Feb. 12-March 8. It's a haunting, darkly comic tale of the relationship between a lonely spinster and her manipulative mother that's won praise for its energy, humor and distinctive voice.

February also offers two recent Broadway smashes on tour at the Barbara B. Mann in Fort Myers. The first is The Full Monty (onstage Feb. 4-9), adapted from the hit film about unemployed men getting down to the naked truth; and, yes, the very timid might want to avert their eyes just before the curtain. The second is Elton John and Tim Rice's version of Aida, (Feb. 25-March 2), telling the timeless story of the love between an Egyptian prince and a Nubian princess with a bit of pop flavor.

Edward Albee fans will want to turn to Theatre Conspiracy for its production of the Pulitzer Prize winner's recent Broadway hit The PlayaAbout the Baby, Feb. 6-23. It's a puzzler that offers a young man and woman, who appear to have just had a child, being visited by a mysterious older man and woman. Who's who and what's what? Those questions may-or may not-be resolved in this intriguing mix of thought-provoking drama and vaudeville show.

Over at the Phil, this is a month of double divas. First the great Denyce Graves unleashes her operatic star power, Feb. 6; then Broadway's Faith Prince (effervescent star of Guys and Dolls, Bells Are Ringing and the recent Noises Off revival in New York) brings stage and popular hits to the stage, Feb. 10. And the Miami City Ballet offers a company premiere of Tchaikovsky's Black Swan Pas de Deux from Swan Lake in performances highlighting the composer's "Princes and Poets," Feb. 4 and 5.

Finally, for a jazzier kind of evening, head over to Schein Hall for an appearance by the John Pizzarelli Trio. One of the country's most respected interpreters of the Great American Songbook, Pizzarelli is in constant demand in New York and other big cities, so it's a treat to hear his guitar and vocals right here on Sanibel, Feb. 8.

March

Tony Curtis sings and dances his way through the new musical version of Billy Wilder's Some Like It Hot this month at the Phil (March 4-9), and it's a hot month indeed, probably the busiest of the season.

Besides Curtis playing lovesick millionaire Osgood Fielding III, March also offers us Master Class (a demanding piece for the actress playing legendary opera star Maria Callas), March 21-April 13 at Florida Rep; Marvin's Room, a tender play by Scott McPherson about a dying woman and the family she's always taken care of, March 26-April 19 at the Sugden's Tobye Studio; and the razzle-dazzle of the Bob Fosse hit Chicago, onstage at Naples Dinner Theatre March 13-April 30, starring NDT owner Barry Marcus as that flashy lawyer, Billy Flynn. And the Cultural Park Theatre Company takes a look back at its origins with A Visit to a Small Planet, Gore Vidal's comedy about a childlike alien that was the troupe's first production back in 1963; onstage March 21-April 6.

As if that weren't enough ... distinguished violinist Elmar Oliveira, the first and only American violinist to win the gold medal at the Tchaikovsky International Competition, joins the Southwest Florida Symphony in performances of "Symphonic Fantasies," March 21 and 22 (that includes Lalo's Symphonie espagnole and Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique); and the Naples Philharmonic's Pops Series revives the Phantom of the Opera, showing a restored print of the classic Lon Chaney film accompanied by organist Dennis James, live, March 25-30. On Sanibel, the Sanibel Music Festival offers, among other treats, pianist Olga Kern (the first woman to receive the Van Cliburn Gold Medal since 1969) and returning diva soprano Elizabeth Futral, along with a performance of Cosi fan tutti. The fest presents seven concerts in all, March 4-25.