Family fun
“Hansel and Gretel”
Wednesday. Kids’ opera. Opera Colorado presents a special production of “Hansel and Gretel” just for little ones at the Children’s Museum of Denver. Part of the city’s Czech Point Denver celebration, the performance takes youngsters deep into the forest with Hansel and Gretel — and teaches them about opera, too. 5-6 p.m. Wednesday. Children’s Museum of Denver, 2121 Children’s Museum Drive; 303-433-7444. Concert included with admission: $8 ages 2 to 59, $6 for 1-year-olds and seniors 60 and older. . Kathleen St. John
Dinosaur fest
Saturday-Sunday. Fossil fun. Dig for dinosaur knowledge at the Paleo-Explorers Dinosaur Festival at the Colorado Chautauqua. Budding paleontologists can inspect the Hankla fossil collection from eastern Wyoming, plus help build a life-size duckbill dinosaur. Make and take home casts of a Tyrannosaurus rex tooth and a duckbill vertebra, and hang out with some real paleontologists 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Colorado Chautauqua, 900 Baseline Road, Boulder; 303-442-3282. $5. more at . Kathleen St. John
“Flat Stanley”
Thursday. Embracing two-dimensional life. Follow Flat Stanley around the world in “The Musical Adventures of Flat Stanley,” the latest children’s production at the Arvada Center. After a bulletin board flattens the three-dimensional Stanley Lambchop in bed one night, he decides to embrace his flatness. Through April 16; 10 a.m. and noon, Mondays through Fridays, with some exceptions; call to check. The Arvada Center, 6901 Wadsworth Blvd., Arvada; 720-898-7200. $8 for general admission, $10 for reserved seating. . Kathleen St. John
Quiz time
“Woodstock for nerds”
Saturday. Super Bowl of Trivia. Denver-based quizmasters Geeks Who Drink are taking the leap from the Gothic Theatre to the cavernous Fillmore Auditorium for this year’s fifth annual Geek Bowl. This “Woodstock for nerds” billing brings nearly 1,000 folks on 150 teams from around the country to battle it out for thousands in cash. Spectator seats cost $12, and team tickets are $25 per person. 6 p.m. 1510 Clarkson St.; 303-532-4737 or . John Wenzel
Theater
Morphing Kafka
Through Feb. 19. Theater . . . on ice? Skating with your theater, anyone? Buntport Theater brings back “Kafka on Ice,”its popular dark comedy from 2004 that is performed on, yes, synthetic ice. The story weaves a semi-fictionalized biography of the Czech author together with the plot of his famously buggy short story, “Metamorphosis.” As the details of Kafka’s life spin into increasingly ice-scapade-esque madness, he desperately tries to rein the plotline in. Josh Hartwell joins the regular Buntport ensemble to play Kafka. $13-$20. 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays; 3 p.m. Sundays through Feb. 19 at 717 Lipan St., 720-946-1388 or . John Moore
Racial skirmish after war
Saturday and Sunday. Discussion follows.”Medal of Honor Rag”is Tom Cole’s fact-based one-act play, showing the 1971 confrontation between a troubled black Vietnam War hero and the white psychiatrist who tries to help him after he returns. The two performances by the Association for the Retention of Cultural Heritages are at 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday, and benefit Veterans Green Jobs. Sunday’s staging will be followed by a panel discussion on veterans’ affairs. $15-$20. At Su Teatro’s Denver Civic Theater, 721 Santa Fe Drive, 303-296-0219 or . John Moore
Visual art
Romanian artist’s works
Saturday and Sunday. Mixed media. Fascination St. Fine Art, 2727 E. Third Ave., presents paintings, drawings and original prints by Alexandra Nechita. Born in 1985 in Romania, she became something of a sensation as a child prodigy with a solo exhibition at the Los Angeles Public Library, among other places. Her recent works will be on view from to 6 to 9 p.m. Saturday and noon to 3 p.m. Sunday. Free. 720-515-4282 or . Kyle MacMillan
DAM’s Indian art redo
Sunday. American Indian art. The Denver Art Museum has renovated and reinstalled its Indian galleries on the third floor of its original building. The new display showcases about 700 objects, including about 650 that have never been shown previously.and puts an emphasis on the individual artists who created them. With 18,000 objects, the institution’s Indian holdings are among the largest and most comprehensive of any art museum in the country. Viewing hours are noon to 5 p.m., with special opening events from 1 to 4 p.m. Free with regular museum admission. 720-865-5000 or . Kyle MacMillan
Classical music
All-Mozart CSO program
Today, Saturday and Sunday. Symphonic music. No composer has more enduring appeal than Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Bernard Labadie, whose refined conducting has made a memorable impression during previous Denver visits, will lead the Colorado Symphony in an all-Mozart program highlighted by the composer’s Requiem and Oboe Concerto. Performances are 7:30 p.m. today and Saturday and 2:30 p.m. Sunday in Boettcher Concert Hall. $37-$85. 303-623-7876 or . Kyle MacMillan
Brahms Sextet
Saturday. Chamber music. Johannes Brahms’ chamber works rank among his greatest creations, yet those for slightly larger instrumentations do not get heard that often. For that reason, a 2 p.m. concert, highlighted by Brahms’ String Sextet No. 2 in F major, is a welcome event. The program, featuring members of the Colorado Symphony, will take place in Hampden Hall in the Englewood Civic Center, 1000 Englewood Parkway. $15, $12 seniors and $5 children. 303-806-8196 or . Kyle MacMillan
Film
“Gerald” screening
Friday. Local talent. Looking for a quirky, oddly likable hero? The Emerging Filmmakers Project and Castle Rock Film Festival impresario and screenwriter Tim Gallagher have just the guy: the slow but kindly protagonist of “Gerald.” The comedy-thriller, with Louis Mandylor, Deborah Theaker and Mickey Rooney, will have a special screening, followed by a Q&A with Gallagher. 7 p.m. at the Bug Theater, 3654 Navajo St. $10. 303-477-9984, . Lisa Kennedy
After weekend, sculpture show will be no Moore
The Denver Art Museum’s blockbuster King Tut show might have generated more hubbub, but the Denver Botanic Gardens’ Henry Moore presentation, which concludes Monday, has to be considered just as big a success.
With 20 monumental, primarily bronze sculptures by the celebrated 20th-century British sculptor, “Moore in the Gardens” is by far the largest and most ambitious art exhibition ever mounted by the gardens.
Lisa Eldred, director of exhibitions, credits it with boosting attendance to 820,000 visitors in 2010 — a 55 percent jump from 2009.
“More important, it has really helped us reach out to neighboring states and tourism opportunities within the region,” she said. “So the Gardens is now able to contribute in an even greater way to the cultural vibrancy that makes Denver a destination.”
Temperatures are expected to be in the 50s and upper 40s this weekend, and the gardens are primed for a big turnout during the final four days to view the sculptures.
“The weather has been nice most often, which is a benefit, and we’ve definitely seen strong visitation as people come to snap their last photos before we say goodbye to the works,” Eldred said.
Free with regular admission; 720-865-3500 or Kyle MacMillan
Wide-reaching pianist Thibaudet goes all-Liszt
The practice is fading, but the classical- music world has long pigeonholed pianists according to nationality.
It has been especially true for French keyboardists, who have typically been called on to play Maurice Ravel or Camille Saint-Saëns and too often overlooked for anything else.
Pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet, who will present a recital Sunday afternoon under the auspices of Friends of Chamber Music, has fought this tendency his entire career.
“People just love to put everything in little boxes and just close the box and open another box with something else in there,” he said from his home in Los Angeles. “It’s just completely ridiculous.”
Thibaudet, 49, certainly plays his share of French music, and his credentials in that realm are impeccable. The Lyon native entered the Paris Conservatory when he was 12, and one of his teachers was Lucette Descaves, a friend and collaborator of Ravel.
But his unusually wide-ranging interests take him in many other directions, as well, from Duke Ellington to operatic transcriptions to Sergei Rachmaninoff, and the pianist has taken pains to not let himself get stereotyped anywhere along the way.
“Right from the beginning, we were careful — incredibly careful — with promoters, with my managers, with the record company — that we wouldn’t overdo the French part of it,” Thibaudet said. “It is important. I love French music, and it will always be part of my life, but not more than any other repertoire.”
The busy pianist defied expectations yet again with his most recent album — one of his best-selling and most critically acclaimed. It features Ferde Grofe’s jazz-band arrangements of three of George Gershwin’s best-known works, including “Rhapsody in Blue” and Concerto in F.
“Gershwin is in a category of his own,” the pianist said. “It’s not jazz; it’s not classical. It’s all of it together — that phenomenal talent and genius that he was.”
Given Thibaudet’s catholic tastes, it’s probably not surprising that Sunday’s solo recital will not include one work by a French composer.
Instead, it is devoted entirely to Franz Liszt, who was born in Hungary to German-speaking parents and was schooled in the Austro-Germanic tradition, studying with Beethoven’s protege, Carl Czerny.
“Liszt has always been one of my favorite composers,” Thibaudet said. “He’s one of the composers who has always been present in my repertoire. I don’t think there’s one season where I haven’t performed the concertos a few times, and, in recitals, I very often have Liszt on my programs.”
This program is part of the worldwide celebration of the 2011 bicentennial of Liszt’s birth. Thibaudet just returned from five performances of it in Europe, and his stop in Denver is part of an American tour that will take him to Carnegie Hall on Feb. 2.
“People always think of Liszt as virtuoso: flashy, big, fast and loud — a superficial showman,” he said. “And there is some of that, obviously, and he certainly had a period in his life when there was a lot of that.”
But Liszt was also an intelligent and sensitive composer, Thibaudet said, and for this program, the pianist chose less widely known works that illustrate the extraordinary range of his music.
These include Liszt’s “Legendes” and “Consolations,” as well as two quick works that Thibaudet called clins d’oeil (blinks of the eye) — adaptations of Frederic Chopin and Richard Wagner.
Whether it’s Liszt, Gershwin or something else, there is rarely much of a break in Thibaudet’s schedule because, as he freely admits, he has a hard time saying no.
“It’s my passion, obviously, and it has to be,” he said of his concertizing. “I enjoy every time I go on stage, and as long as you have that, you’re fine.”
Kyle MacMillan: 303-954-1675 or kmacmillan@denverpost.com
PIANIST JEAN-YVES THIBAUDET
Classical music. University of Denver, Newman Center for the Performing Arts, 2344 E. Iliff Ave. To mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of Franz Liszt, the internationally recognized French pianist presents a solo recital devoted to a cross-section of works by the fiery composer and celebrated keyboard virtuoso. 4 p.m. Sunday. $40. Newman Center box office or 800-982-2787 or . This summer, Thibaudet is scheduled to perform July 9 with the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival (970-827-5700 or ) and July 13 and 15 at the Aspen Music Festival (970-925-9042 or ).
