Oh, to sing in a baritone. It's a powerful thing, to be sure. You possess the ability to make audiences swoon with a range of rich, deep, mahogany tones while impressing all with your high notes. Added bonus: Everybody wonders what you have working beneath your belt. Tonight Miami music lovers will be treated to a concert by one of the world's most celebrated baritones, Dmitri Hvorostovsky. The golden-toned classical singer will be serenading fans with the Moscow Chamber Orchestra in a program that includes arias by Handel, Gluck, and Mozart as well as Russian romances and Neapolitan songs. The concert is presented as the culminating event of the Concert Association of Florida's Sanford L. Ziff Prestige Series. Curtain rises at 8:00 at the Jackie Gleason Theater, 1700 Washington Ave., Miami Beach. Tickets range from $20 to $75. Call 305-673-7300.
Friday 4/30
In Jacques Nolot's 2002 film La Chatte Deux Têtes, there is beauty in the unseemliest of places. The film captures the life of a Paris porn theater, where married men, transsexuals, male prostitutes, soldiers, cops, and other curious souls gather for anonymous encounters in the dark. Though the bonds between tryst-mates may be fleeting, La Chatte captures the glow of the relationships that form in the darkened aisles and toilettes. Rather than exploit the seediness of the world the film inhabits, Nolot exposes the heart of a shadowy life that thrives in the decrepit theater. If you always wanted to look, but couldn't bear the embarrassment, this voyeuristic work may be for you. It screens at 10:00 p.m. at the Miami Beach Cinematheque, 512 Española Way, Miami Beach. Admission costs $10. Call 305-673-4567.
Saturday 5/1
Sponge cake, margaritas, Hawaiian shirts, and volcanoes. Whom other than Key West legend Jimmy Buffett to mix these ingredients into a timeless repertoire of colorful American songs. From his early offerings in country music to his latter nautical tunes, Buffett has always raised a wry and countercultural voice that is more piña colada than Molotov cocktail. His career has taken him from chart-topping pop singer to literary figure to a comfy place among Fortune magazine's list of top-earning entertainers. He performs tonight with the Coral Reefer Band in the appropriately named License to Chill tour. Be ready to sing along with his signature "Margaritaville," "Volcano," and "Why Don't We Get Drunk (and Screw)." Buffett plays at 8:00 at the Office Depot Center, 2555 NW 137th Way, Sunrise. Tickets range from $31 to $65. Call 954-835-7825.
Sunday 5/2
Dutch art really made a name for itself in the Seventeenth Century. It was a time when Dutch and Flemish masters were flourishing with innovative techniques that seemed to capture an all-too-real reality in great detail. The painter who really set the tone was Rembrandt. His 1642 masterpiece, The Night Watch, influenced the way his contemporaries and those who followed approached their work. Dr. Walter Liedtke, curator of European paintings at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, discusses the era in his lecture Dutch Art in the Age of Rembrandt as part of the Bass Museum's Salon Masterpiece Series. Liedtke speaks at 3:00 p.m. at the Bass Museum of Art, 2121 Park Ave., Miami Beach. Admission is free with $6 museum entrance fee. Call 305-673-7530.
Monday 5/3
Male bonding doesn't get any better than creative collaboration among family. Yes, sports and brews are the easy-access bonding devices, but father-son team Glenn and Dylan Terry may have shared something more fulfilling. The pair melded their artistic sensibilities to open their joint gallery exhibit, aptly titled Tu Tu Terry: The Art of Sire and Spawn. Father Terry is among the most colorful of Miamians. He was one of the founders of the King Mango Strut, Coconut Grove's irreverent spoof of the old Orange Bowl Parade. The exhibit can be seen through Saturday, May 22, from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. at the Biscayne Nature Center, 6767 Crandon Blvd. Admission is free. Call 306-361-6767.
Tuesday 5/4
A recently publicized study by the journal Death Studies (yes, there actually is a journal with that name) found that of all writers, poets have the shortest lifespan. Their tortured existences fizzle a few years before those of novelists, nonfiction writers, and calendar scribes. The long-time poetry event Butterfly Lightning Reading Series almost went DOA after the regular gigs at Tobacco Road bit the dust. But there is an afterlife. The series kicks back to life tonight when two featured local poets, Hugo Rodriguez and Lissette Mendez, step up to the mike and read their works. The revival provides the public yet another fleeting chance to catch the wordsmiths in their glory with monthly readings at the Wallflower Gallery (10 NE Third St.). The poets read promptly at 7:00 p.m. Call 305-579-0069 for details.
Wednesday 5/5
Contrary to common belief, Cinco de Mayo does not mark Mexico's independence from Spanish rule. Nor does it mark the day when the first American college girl ate the worm in a bottle of mescal. The historical date actually commemorates the victory of the Mexican Army over the French in a bloody battle outside of Puebla on May 5, 1862. Somehow the carnage of the day has been cleaned up as frat boys and tourists have claimed the semiholiday for themselves. Still it's not a bad excuse to party. Who questions the motive of a reveler who screams out, "It's Cinco de Mayo!" Line up your tequila shots at your favorite watering hole. All together now -- "Olé!"
