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Stage: Hot Ticket
By JOHN FLEMING
© St. Petersburg Times, published April 5, 2001
Berlioz's grand prayer
Berlioz's Grande Messe des Morts is a symphony in liturgical clothing, to borrow a description of Verdi's Requiem, which is often described as an operatic Mass. In fact, George Bernard Shaw said that the Latin Requiem was "only a peg" for Berlioz to "hang his tremendous music on."
The 90-minute work, performed this weekend by the Florida Orchestra and the Master Chorale, is famous for its use of four brass bands positioned at four points around the concert hall during the Tuba Mirum movement. There is only one soloist, tenor Noel Espiritu Velasco, and he appears in only one movement.
Jahja Ling conducts at 8 p.m. Friday at Ruth Eckerd Hall, 2 p.m. Saturday at Mahaffey Theater and 7:30 p.m. Sunday at Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center. Tickets: $20-$38. (813) 286-2403.
Making a play for power
Naturally, Gorilla Theatre is touting its latest production as "electrifying." War of the Currents, a new play by Gorilla co-founder Aubrey Hampton, is about the development of electrical power in the United States. It recounts the competition between two inventors: Thomas Edison, who promoted direct current, and Nikola Tesla, who favored alternating current.
Steve Mountan, pictured here, plays Tesla, and Steven Clark Pachosa is Edison. Direction was by Hampton, whose research took him from Paris, where the Eiffel Tower has a Edison exhibit, and to Goat Island at Niagara Falls, where there's a statue of Tesla.
War of the Currents opens at 7 tonight and continues through April 22. No performance Easter Sunday. Tickets: $14 and $17. (813) 879-2914.
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