At a loose end? BR brings you the best of Bucharest’s cultural highlights for the week ahead.

OPERA

Un ballo in maschera (A Masked Ball)

Bucharest National Opera

February 21, 19.00

The performance is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi, libretto by Antonio Somma after the libretto “Gustav III” by Eugène Scribe for an opera by François Auber., staging Cristian Bălăşescu – Riccardo (invited), Ionuţ Pascu – Renato, Mariana Colpoş – Amelia, Andrada Ioana Roşu – Ulrica and Veronica Anuşca – Oscar, under the wand of Iurie Florea.

Don Giovanni

Bucharest National Opera

Read more about

Offline vs. Online Wallet Apps: Finding The Right Balance

read more

February 23, 18.30

Based on the legends of Don Juan, a fictional libertine and seducer, “Don Giovanni” is the latest performance of the Bucharest National Opera, which has had the premiere on February 17. Under the wand of Vlad Conta, Mozart’s characters are represented by Don Giovanni – Eugen Secobeanu, Il Commendatore – Marius Boloș, Donna Anna – Edith Borsos, Don Ottavio – Andrei Lazăr, Donna Elvira – Antonela Bârnat, Leporello – Radu Ion.

PERFORMANCE PROJECTIONS

Otello from Salzburg Festival 2008

The Grand Cinema Digiplex

February 21, 20.00

Based on Shakespeare’s play “Othello”, the opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi is presented in a performance directed by Stephen Langridge and conducted by Riccardo Muti, with Otello played by Aleksandrs Antonenko and Desdemona played by Marina Poplavskaya.

FILM

Oscar’s movies week

Grand Cinema Digiplex

Ticket price: RON 20

Thursday, February 21 – Les Miserables (13.45), Skyfall (17.00), The Sessions (20.00)

Friday, February 22 – Life of Pi (14.25), Anna Karenina (17.10), Argo (20.00), War Witch (22.40)

Saturday, February 23 – Life of Pi (14.30), Amour (17.15), Silver Linings Playbook (20.00), The Impossible (22.40)

Sunday, February 24 – Zero Dark Thirty (14.30), The Sessions (17.45), Lincoln (20.00), A Royal Affair (23.10)

Austrian Short Films

Cinemateca Eforie

February 20-22

All the movies were nominated for the short film award of the Austrian Film Academy.  The movies are scheduled from 19.00. Free admission within the limit of available places. All the movies have English subtitles.

EXHIBITION

Masks in Venice

The Romanian Peasant’s Museum

Until February 28

The “Foaier” hall of the Romanian Peasant’s Museum (MTR) displays a collective photographic exhibition organised by the Italian Culture Institute. The exhibition presents about 60 photos. As part of the event, the Italian Culture Institute will hold a Carnival Party on Thursday, 21 February 2013, starting hour 19.00, which is meant to reproduce the joyful Venetian atmosphere, on the music of Vivaldi, Albinoni, Benedetto Marcello and other Venetian composers. Admission is free.

Lights and shadows

Instituto Cervantes

Until March 31

The Spanish painter Ima Montoya will present at Instituto Cervantes her latest exhibition, “Lights and shadows”. Montoya was born and raised on the banks of the Nervion, famous for fishing fleets, ship building and steel production, a place of industry. Like most people from the Nervion she has inherited from this backdrop of hard work and industry she brings to her work the attributes of strength, energy and a sense of purpose. Also like many of her people before her she has traveled across the sea in search of new possibilities.

The artist has lived and worked in Bilbao, Madrid, London, Tokyo, Moscow and now the journey continues in Budapest. A nomadic life has not been a handicap for her but a platform to explore and assimilate influences from diverse cultures. The result is clearly displayed in her work, full of energy, rhythm and movement, never remaining still and where the only constant is change. Influences, techniques, forms, concepts and even language are put into her melting pot. Spanish, Japanese, Euskera, English, Russian and Hungarian, interlaced and overlapping form part of the cultural cocktail that characterizes her work which is vibrant and in which we feel alive.

Testimonials. The Frescoes from the Arges Monastery

National Museum of Art of Romania

Until May 26

The Arges Monastery, a flagship example of Romanian culture, was restored between 1875 and 1882 under the supervision of architect André Lecomte du Noüy, a practitioner of French conservationist principles. The original mural painting had to make room for an entirely new one: only 35 fragments were considered worth preserving. Some 31 of them were restored between 1990 and 2012 and are now on show together for the first time.

Passage to the Future: Art from a New Generation in Japan

National Museum of Contemporary Art

Until February 28

This Japanese exhibition aims to showcase the most varied aspects of the Nippon artistic landscape of the last twenty years. The project, presenting a new generation of Japanese artists, comes to Romania for the first time, after having gone on show in over 20 countries. With the support of the Embassy of Japan in Romania and the Japan Foundation, 42 works will be on display, including paintings, photographs, video art, installations and animated films, by the country’s best known artists of the moment, Atsushi Fukui, Satoshi Hirose, Maywa Denki, Tomoyasu Murata, Tetsuya Nakamura, Katsuhiro Saiki, Masafumi Sanai, Yoshihiro Suda, Tabaimo, Nobuyuki Takahashi and Miyuki Yokomizo.

THEATRE

Pyramus & Thisbe 4 You

Odeon Theatre

February 21, 19.00

The performance is based on William Shakespeare’s story, “A midsummer night’s dream”, directed by Alexandru Dabija, who multiplies by four the classical theatre in the theatre situation from “A midsummer night’s dream”, the famous scene of the mechanicals.  The show can be performed with subtitles in English. If you are interested, please email at odeon.art@teatrul-odeon.ro.

DISCOVER BUCHAREST

The Late Neo-Romanian Style of Bucharest’s Kisseleff Park area, Bucharest – walking tour

February 23, 11.30-14.00

Reservations: v.mandache@gmail.com / 0040 (0)728.323.272

Tour available in Romanian and English, RON 30

The guide offers a thematic architectural tour on the subject of the late phase of the Neo-Romanian architectural style, which unfurled mainly in the fourth and the fifth decades of the c20th, a period when this order peculiar to Romania reached a crisis in terms of expression, mitigated by fascinating syntheses with the Art Deco, Mediterranean and Modernist styles.

Patriarchy Hill area, Bucharest– walking tour

February 24, 11.30-14.00

Reservations: v.mandache@gmail.com / 0040 (0)728.323.272

Tour available in Romanian and English, RON 30

The tour offers a guide through the urban expanse surrounding what is considered as the “Acropolis” of Bucharest, the hill that dominates the old town and is the seat of the Romanian Orthodox Church, the main faith of this country, containing the patriarchal cathedral together with its administrative quarters, reworked in the inter-war period by the architect Gheorghe Simotta.

GOING OUT

Live music pubs

There’s nothing quite like live music, and concert lovers will find plenty of choice in Bucharest. From club music to cabaret, folk to flamenco, BR brings you a selection of the best live music venues in the capital. Famous bands from the Rolling Stones and the Beatles through to Oasis cut their teeth in pubs and bars before they hit the big scene. Locally, many aspiring musicians stage great shows, which can be enjoyed for a small or no admission fee at various live music bars. You may also catch a famous singer, as contestants from television music competitions, such as X Factor and The Voice of Romania, also ply the circuit. Details here: http://business-review.ro/sidebar-featured/concerted-effort-beat-the-winter-blues-with-some-live-music/

Oana Vasiliu