SATURDAY
OPERA
CARMEN
Opera-curious? But wary? This month you have no excuse. Georges Bizet’s classic is deservedly one of the most popular operas ever and perfect for the newbie. For one thing, you know the tunes. You’ve heard bits of Carmen in that Gilligan’s Island episode where they stage a musical version of Hamlet; you’ve heard the Act II “Gypsy Dance” in a notorious scene from There’s Something About Mary (“Where’d it go?!”); you’ve heard the “Toreador Song” from a ringing cell phone. Carmen is also concisein Seattle Opera’s production, just 80 minutes before intermission, 45 after. Bizet had a near-infallible stage sense, and he makes the action move. There are no serious implausibilities; it’s ultimately tragic, but often quite funny, too. Carmen is a “number opera,” which means all the arias, choruses, and ensembles are separated by spoken dialogue, just like a musical. And you like musicals, right? Then again, the dialogue’s in French, but English supertitles will be projected on a screen. Stephanie Blythe (above) will play the leading role. Opens 7:30 p.m. Sat., Jan. 10. $39-$125. McCaw Hall, Seattle Center, 206-389-7676. Runs through Jan. 30. GAVIN BORCHERT
FRIDAY
ARTS
GRAY AS COLOR
Last time I attended I Heart Rummage, I realized that, duh, it’s the spot to spy on creative, hot, inventively fashionable Seattleites. Since Rummage co-curator Sam Trout is showing tonight, I’d guess this multivenue Fremont arts experience (at Priceless Works, ToST, and m:pulse Boutique) is a safe bet for some inspirational eye candy as well. The bands’77 throwback showmen the Girls, goofball gimmick act Tyco Party, and the vampishly talented Catchcertainly ain’t nothing to throw a drop cloth over, and we haven’t even gotten to the fashion show yet. A $5 cover charge gets you into all three spotsand, lucky you, they’re all on the same block. All courtesy of the Graylife collective. 6 p.m.-2 a.m. Fri., Jan. 9. $5. Fremont. For info/map, see www.graylife.com. LAURA CASSIDY
FRIDAY-SUNDAY
CLASSICAL
WINTER INTERLUDE
The Seattle Chamber Music Society’s annual event is a fine way to celebrate the departure of Christmas carols from our concert scene. It’s a three-day, concentrated version of their popular July festival at Lakeside. Director Toby Saks has a knack for enticing the summer’s excellent musiciansviolinist Scott Yoo, for example (below)to return just when our weather is at its least charming. The repertoire is heavily late-Romantic this year: Bruckner, Dvor(breve)ák, Elgar, Grieg, Strauss. Each concert will be preceded by a recital an hour earlier, plus there’ll be a family concert ($4) with the Pacific Rims percussion quartet Saturday at 4 p.m. 8 p.m. Fri., Jan. 9-Sat., Jan. 10; 1 p.m. Sun., Jan. 11. $35 ($16 for ages under 18) or $92 for all three days. Benaroya Recital Hall, Third Avenue and Union Street, 206-283-8808. GAVIN BORCHERT
TUESDAY
BOOKS
BILLY COLLINS
Official U.S. poet laureate sounds so stuffy, but Collins is anything but. Maybe it’s not such a bad thing that he relinquished his title with the expiration of 2003now he can get back to the day-to-day business of making verse. New in paper last fall, his collection Nine Horses (Random House, $12.95) celebrates the quotidian, not the grand. In “The Country,” he frets about the mice behind the wainscoting of a weekend home, imagining that a “little brown druid” might somehow get hold of a wooden kitchen match and burn the place down. His worries are trivial and exaggerated, but their familiarity burrows into the reader’s own lived experiencerather like the mouse, in fact. (First, UW prof Brian Reed will preview Collins’ work at 5:30.) 7:30 p.m. Tues., Jan. 13. $9-$18. Benaroya Hall, Third Avenue and Union Street, 206-621-2230. BRIAN MILLER
TUESDAY-SUNDAY
STAGE
THE EXONERATED
While celebrity activist stunt-casting may eventually turn it into some kind of theatrical punch line (singer/songwriter Steve Earle is currently headlining the New York run), this moving collection of first-person narratives is no joke. Playwrights Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen interviewed more than 40 people who spent time on death row, and the resulting docudrama is a resonant account of six of their stories, and of the sorrow and spirit in their hard-won freedom. Director Bob Balaban’s touring production isn’t lacking star appeal: Lynn Redgrave and recent Tony-winner (Long Day’s Journey Into Night) Brian Dennehy are the big names among the ensemble. Runs Tues., Jan. 13-Sun., Jan. 18. $25-$45. Paramount Theatre, 911 Pine St., 206-292-ARTS. STEVE WIECKING
