Fall Arts Highlights 2009: Critics' Picks

Pianist Joyce Yang

At age 19, Korean-born pianist Joyce Yang won the silver medal at the 2005 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition and the prize for best chamber-music performance. Last season she had a knockout performance with the New York Philharmonic. Her Chopin Society recital here features Liebermann’s Gargoyles, op. 29, Debussy’s Estampes, Brahms’s Klavierstücke, op. 119, and more. Nov. 8. Janet Wallace Fine Arts Center, Macalester College, 130 Macalester St., St. Paul, 612-822-0123, chopinsocietymn.org

The Museum of Russian Art

Russian photographer Sergei Prokudin-Gorskii had extraordinary access to the Russian Empire under Tsar Nicholas II, and his color plates are often stunning. Photographer to the Tsar: Revealing the Silk Road is a companion exhibition to last year’s The Lost Empire: Photographer to the Tsar. It features 26 plates, backlit by light boxes, of life during Russia’s occupation of Central Asia at the turn of the 20th century. Opens Sept. 28. The Museum of Russian Art, 5500 Stevens Ave. S., Mpls., 612-821-9045, tmora.org

Minnesota Orchestra's Russian Spectacular

The Minnesota Orchestra kicks off its 107th season with a three-weekend Russian spectacular featuring pianist Stephen Hough and you, the audience. Hough and the orchestra are recording all four of Tchaikovsky’s piano-and-orchestra works live in concert, so you can be a part of recorded history. The cycle will be released by Hyperion in the spring of 2010. Sept. 24-Oct. 10. 1100 Nicollet Mall, Mpls., 612-371-5656, minnesotaorchestra.org

The House Can't Stand

Those of us still smarting from the demise of Theatre de la Jeune Lune should see this new work written and performed by former Jeune Lune member Steve Epp, and directed and designed by Dominique Serrand. One assumes that the two have remained restless, searching, and vitally acute artists—ones who haven’t lost that ephemeral ability to surprise. Oct. 22–25. Southern Theater, 1420 Washington Ave. S., Mpls., 612-340-1725, southerntheater.org

Royal Winnipeg Ballet

Love in an absinthe-laden underworld full of rhinestones, corsets, and miles of ballet legs—the Royal Winnipeg’s Moulin Rouge promises to be a dazzling guilty pleasure. The Canadian ballet company, which first performed here last fall, returns with a world premiere exploring the famous French cabaret. Oct. 17. Northrop Auditorium, 84 SE Church St., Mpls., 612-624-2345, northrop.umn.edu

Radio Golf, Penumbra Theatre

Penumbra’s plan to stage all 10 plays in August Wilson’s 20th century cycle represents a near-perfect confluence of writer, director, and company. Penumbra has scaled back to one Wilson play per year rather than two, but none of the passion nor precision will be lost. Radio Golf, the last play in Wilson’s cycle, takes place in the late 1990s, when a candidate tries to become the first black mayor of Pittsburgh. Wilson’s ability to convey African-American history as a complex, multidimensional narrative has been well documented, as has his propensity for writing big, sprawling plays with his thumb on the pulse of just about everything. Penumbra doing Wilson is usually masterful—and quite often definitive. Oct. 1–25. Penumbra Theatre, 270 N. Kent St., St. Paul, 651-224-3180, penumbratheatre.org

Walker Art Center's Event Horizon

The Walker Art Center’s Event Horizon is an ambitious multidisciplinary project that features various aspects of the Walker’s extensive collection presented in a continuously unfolding rotation—of film, paintings, sculpture, performances, and ideas—over the course of three years. Opens Nov. 21. Walker Art Center, 1750 Hennepin Ave., Mpls., 612-375-7600, walkerart.org

SPCO: Requiem and Te Deum

Dale Warland, artistic director of the SPCO Chorale and beloved figure in the Twin Cities choral community, takes to the podium for this program of contemporary sacred music. Maurice Duruflé’s serene Requiem combines Gregorian plainchant with 20th-century harmonies. Arvo Pärt’s “sacred minimalism” gives his Te Deum a hauntingly ethereal effect. Oct. 22. Trinity Lutheran Church, 115 N. 4th St., Stillwater; Oct. 23. Wooddale Church, 6630 Shady Oak Rd., Eden Prairie, 651-291-1144, thespco.org

Isabel Bayrakdarian with the Minnesota Opera

International sensation Isabel Bayrakdarian cancelled her Schubert Club recital last season, but audiences can catch the soprano with the Minnesota Opera in Georges Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers. Her role as a mysterious priestess at the center of a bitter love triangle is an ideal one for the exotic Canadian-Armenian. With designs by British fashion icon Zandra Rhodes, this evening promises to be stunning vocally and visually. Sept. 26–Oct. 4. Ordway Center for the Performing Arts, 345 Washington St., St. Paul, 612-333-6669, mnopera.org