'The 7 Dwarfs'
Opening: Playwright Kevin Kling and director Michael Sommers have decided to "reinvestigate" a play that they did in 1988 at Theatre de la Jeune Lune. Sommers teaches at the University of Minnesota, so it made sense to stage this new production at the Rarig Center in Minneapolis. Kling set his comic tale in the dwarfs' "post-Snow White era." The little folks are called "Browsers" who annually commemorate their brief association with the princess. This is a good chance to catch "early Kling" that has been revisited by the older man who has written so much about the place of myth in our lives. Kling and Sommers will invite a discussion of the work after Saturday's performance. (7:30 p.m. Thu.-Sat., 2 p.m. Sun. Ends March 8; Rarig Center, 330 21st Av. S., Mpls.; $6-$16, 612-624-2345 or www.theatre.umn.edu) Graydon Royce
St. Paul Chamber Orchestra
Thu.-Fri.: Jeremy Denk, one of the SPCO's new artistic partners, demonstrates his love of the Baroque. With the orchestra, he performs two Bach piano concertos and he solos in the final, unresolved movement of Bach's final masterpiece, "The Art of Fugue." In the rest of the program, he plays Janáček's haunting Violin Sonata with concertmaster Steven Copes. And members of the orchestra perform "Mládí (Youth), Suite for Wind Sextet," written when Janáček was approaching 70, reflecting back on his childhood, with music full of folk tunes and lighthearted melodies. (7:30 p.m. Feb. 26, Trinity Lutheran Church, 115 N. 4th St., Stillwater; 8 p.m. Feb. 27, Wooddale Church, 6630 Shady Oak Road, Eden Prairie; $12-$42, 651-291-1144, www.thespco.org)
William Randall Beard
The Rose Ensemble
This weekend: The group once again breaks ground with the North American premiere of the "Requiem" of Pedro de Escobar, a Renaissance Portuguese composer at the court of Isabella I of Castille (1474-1504). This is a new manuscript transcription from Madrid of one of the earliest surviving examples of polyphonic music from the Iberian Peninsula. The Rose Ensemble will re-create the historical experience of hearing the Requiem Mass by incorporating the wind instruments of the San Francisco Dark Horse Consort, with sackbuts (Renaissance trombones) adding an air of solemnity. (7:30 p.m. Feb. 26, Sacred Heart Music Center, 201 W. 4th St., Duluth; 8 p.m. Feb. 27, Church of St. Bernard, 187 Geranium Av. W., St. Paul; 8 p.m. Feb. 28, Basilica of St. Mary, 88 N. 17th St., Mpls.; $10-$39, 651-225-4340, www.roseensemble.org) W.R.B.