As if that centerpiece to the festival weren't enough, Louisville
also has its own Bach Society (Singing the B Minor Mass on April
18), the
Louisville Ballet (staging Michel Fokine's
Les
Sylphides, March 26 and 27), and the Louisville Symphony (with
violinist Silvia Marcovici on March 20).
Sarasota, Florida
Clustered in Sarasota on
Florida's
Gulf Coast are many of the state
arts organizations, with The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art
as the centerpiece. This vast ornate Italianate villa was built in
the 1920s by the circus magnate to house his eclectic art
collection.
In addition to being the center of golf, good living, and gorgeous
beaches, Sarasota is home to the first state theater of Florida,
the Asolo (pronounced "Oslo"), which works in a modified English
repertory format that means you can see, say in May this year,
The Diary of Anne Frank,
Hay Fever,
I'm Not
Rappaport, and
The Smell of the Kill - four
professionally produced plays - in one weekend.
But Sarasota isn't just for museum and theater devotees. Through
most of March, the Sarasota Opera is staging
The Magic Flute
and
Il Corsaro; the Sarasota Ballet dances James Buckley's
choreography for
The Rite of Spring in April; and Selby
Botanical Gardens convenes the second International Orchid
Conservation
Congress in May. And all year, one of the country's
most distinctively designed - and busiest - production centers,
Sarasota's Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall, presents touring
programs of the widest possible range. The Dukes of Dixieland,
Willie Nelson, the Moscow Festival Ballet, Kenny Rogers, and
humorist Mark Russell all play the house in the first week of March
alone.
Taos, New Mexico