THE goddess Venus isn’t just blazing this week, she’s also singin’, dancin’ and flirtin’ — in Opera North’s sensational exhumation of Kurt Weill’s broadway musical One Touch of Venus. Dietrich turned down the title role because it was “too sexy and profane”, but the story of an art collector who loses his prize statue of the goddess when she decides to explore the pleasures of Manhattan is simply irresistible. The company takes the show home to Leeds on Thursday (The Grand, 0113-222 6222), before performances next week at the Lowry in Salford (0870 7875785).
Come back to earth via Sweden, and two concerts at the Wigmore Hall forming part of the 350th anniversary celebrations of Oliver Cromwell’s peace treaty with the Scandinavian kingdom. This afternoon, the effervescent soprano Camilla Tilling sings the music of her compatriots Adolf Lindblad and Wilhelm Stenhammar as well as some better-known items by Mozart and Mendelssohn. On Sunday the hall will resound to the strains of the trombone — specifically, the music of the all-female trombone quartet Bones Apart, who will be joining Christian Lindberg for Berio’s Sequenza V and Lindberg’s own more descriptively titled Dr Decker and the Sausage Factory (020-7935 2141).
Another cause for celebration comes from the New Queen’s Hall Orchestra, which makes its Festival Hall debut on Wednesday with what it claims to be “the first authentically Elgarian performance of The Dream of Gerontius for more than 60 years”. Has the drive to authenticity gone too far? There’s only one way to find out, and with the hugely promising young tenor Peter Auty in the title role, there’s already one excellent reason to head down to the South Bank (0870 3800400).
Head up to Scotland, however, and two concerts look tempting. On Thursday, the chief conductor designate of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Jirí Belohlávek, conducts the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, and soppy romantics can’t fail to fall for Dvorák’s much-loved Cello Concerto (Royal Concert Hall, 0141-353 8000). That same night in Edinburgh Emmanuelle Haïm conducts the Scottish Chamber Orchestra in Purcell’s delightful Come ye Sons of Art and Handel’s Ode for St Cecilia’s Day (Queen’s Hall, 0131-668 2019). And if you missed it because you were plugged into the Dvorák, the concert is repeated in Glasgow’s Barony Hall the next day (0141-353 8000).
I’d love to tell you that this jam-packed week ends soothingly, but Mark Elder and the Hallé Orchestra have come up with a weekend devoted to the testing work of Sir Michael Tippett, including his Second Symphony, Triple Concerto and Ritual Dances from The Midsummer Marriage. Your presence is sure to be rewarded by any gods or goddesses in the vicinity (Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, 0161-907 9000).