Magic Flute

When legendary Metropolitan Opera diva Rosa Ponselle retired in 1937, she helped found an opera company in Baltimore with the aid of some the city's most influential business and civic leaders.When Dorothy Lofton Jones retired from Bell Atlantic in 1992, she did the same thing -- except she did it virtually single-handedly.Since then, Jones' Municipal Opera Company, which opens its 1996-97 season tonight with a production of Mozart's "The Magic Flute," has become a testament to its founder's determination and savvy in creating a multi-ethnic community opera company that gives local performers a venue to display their talent.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's 250th birthday isn't until Jan. 27, but by following a long-standing tradition, fans of the Annapolis Opera will get a head start Sunday on saluting the composer's milestone at the group's "Mozart by Candlelight" concert. This concert, always held on the first Sunday in December, has a history of getting too big for its venues, according to Annapolis Opera treasurer Nancy Lindley. "`Mozart by Candlelight' was first presented at Carroll House and outgrew that location," she said.

Fully recovered from the financial crisis that allowed for only one fully staged production last season, the leaders of Annapolis Opera anticipate a much brighter 2005-2006. "We're starting this season with no long-term debt and with money in the bank," opera President Dennis Monk said recently. From 2000 until 2003, Annapolis Opera staged two operas each season. But in the 2003-2004 season, the opera was able to put on only Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado. The production was critically acclaimed and well attended.

This week, why not take a chance on Mozart? Literally. During its "Many Moods of Mozart" program on Saturday, the Concert Artists of Baltimore will take time out for a perfectly legal crap game. It's all part of "Musikalisches Wurfelspiel" -- "A Musical Dice Game" -- devised by Mozart in 1787 as an arbitrary way of coming up with a minuet. The roll of the dice determines which pre-composed musical phrases are put together to form a complete composition. Other playful sides of Mozart will be explored as well, through excerpts from "The Marriage of Figaro," "The Magic Flute," the "Turkish" Violin Concerto and "Paris" Symphony.

With a limited budget, but rich ideals, the Municipal Opera Company of Baltimore has provided opera-tunities for local singers and audiences since 1991. The multi-ethnic company, founded by Dorothy Lof-ton Jones, makes a particular effort to involve "persons who had traditionally been excluded from mainstream operatic performances." Minority casts are the rule in the annual, fully staged productions, which have ranged from such standard fare as Mozart's "The Magic Flute" and Puccini's "Madama Butterfly" to rarely encountered works by eminent African-Americans, including Scott Joplin's "Treemonisha" and William Grant Still's "A Bayou Legend."

Pulling their strings Experience Mozart like you never have before when the Salzburg Marionettes perform The Magic Flute. The troupe of puppeteers is from the famous Salzburg Marionette Theatre in Austria, and they stand above the stage, controlling near-life-size puppets with a variety of strings as the puppets perform operas, ballets and other interpretive dance. The troupe will also perform a one-hour abbreviated version of Engelbert Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel. The Salzburg Marionettes will perform 7:30 p.m.-9:30 p.m. Saturday at Shriver Hall, 3400 Charles St. Admission is $19-$39.

`Travesties' The lowdown -- James Joyce, Vladimir Lenin and artist Tristan Tzara meet in 1917 Zurich in Tom Stoppard's Travesties, which opens tomorrow at the Johns Hopkins University's Mattin Arts Center, produced by Theatre Hopkins and directed by Tim Fowler. The play includes numerous references to Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest. Referring to Stoppard's approach to Wilde's comedy, Theatre Hopkins producer Suzanne Pratt says, "I liken it to his use of Hamlet in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead."

Candide, the optimistic hero of Voltaire's satiric novella of that name and of the Leonard Bernstein musical theater piece that Voltaire inspired, is a world traveler.Bernstein's "Candide," which will be performed by Peabody Opera Theatre starting tonight, takes its hero from his Westphalian home and plunges him into ever-greater disasters in Paris, Lisbon (where he barely survives the great earthquake), Madrid (where he is beaten and flayed by the Spanish Inquisition), to the New World, to the imaginary world of El Dorado, and finally -- after surviving a shipwreck -- back to Westphalia.

There's nothing dull about Mozart. He composed and played for all of Europe, leaving more than 600 pieces when he died at age 35. Giddy with genius, he ignited jealousy among his contemporaries.On Friday, in purple silk coat and ruffled shirt, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart bounced out of the music and history books at Spring Garden Elementary School in Hampstead.Ted Brown of Annapolis, a retired school principal, musician and painter, is known for his theatrical portrayals of masters of art and music.

A screening of Jeffrey Blitz's Rocket Science, with a portion of the proceeds benefiting the Baltimore Urban Debate League, is set for 4 p.m. Sunday at the Charles Theatre, 1711 N. Charles St. The film centers on a teenager with a severe stuttering problem who is tricked into joining his high school's debate team. After the film, members of the league will answer questions and show a short video of their own. Tickets are $6. Information: budl.org. Award-winning `Trash' Trailer Trash, in which filmmaker Don Diego Ramirez traces a nightmarish three-year period in which his family had to deal with the slow death (from cancer)