8 pm: Music

New York City Opera has returned to Cerritos Center for the Arts, this week presenting multiple performances of Donizetti’s “La Fille du Regiment” with different principals. “The Daughter of the Regiment” will be sung in French, with English supertitles. Joseph Colaneri conducts; stage director is Matthew Lata.

* New York City Opera National Company performs “The Daughter of the Regiment,” with repeats Saturday at 2 and 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m., Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, 12700 Center Court Drive, Cerritos. $15-$45. (562) 916-8500.

8 pm: Dance

Founded by dance historian and choreographer Carol Teten in 1980, the Bay Area company Dance Through Time specializes in the last five centuries of folk, court and social dancing, reconstructing the steps, styles and costumes for full-evening programs such as “Dancetime!” Starting with a display of historical underwear, the eight-member cast offers a survey of Renaissance, Baroque and Romantic mating dances, switching after intermission to a catalog of 20th century pop, from the Castle Walk to break-dancing and beyond--38 numbers in two hours. Nostalgic for disco, the Charleston or the waltz? Seek no further.

* Dance Through Time, Smothers Theatre, Pepperdine University, 24255 Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu. $25. (310) 456-4522.

all day: Movies

Robert Duvall’s latest film, “The Apostle,” about a Pentecostal minister facing a life-changing crisis, opened to rave reviews when it played a one-week Academy Award-qualifying run last month. It begins its regular run Friday. Duvall, who shepherded the project for a decade, also wrote the screenplay and directed. Times film critic Kenneth Turan said: “Duvall has created for himself what could be the defining role of his career. [He] has come up with an effortlessly complex portrayal that relishes the contradictions and complexities of a man capable of both exalted and debased behavior.” Co-stars include Farrah Fawcett as the minister’s wife and country singer June Carter Cash as his mother.

* “The Apostle” is playing at selected theaters.

8 pm: Theater

Sixties teen film idol Troy Donahue headlines--as the dad--in “Bye Bye Birdie,” the rock ‘n’ roll 1960’s musical comedy classic by Michael Stewart, Charles Strouse and Lee Adams about a fictional teen idol who turns a small Midwestern town upside down.

* “Bye Bye Birdie,” Carpenter Performing Arts Center, Cal State Long Beach, 6200 Atherton St. $15-$25. (562) 985-7000. Also at California Center for the Arts, 340 N. Escondido Blvd., Escondido, Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2 p.m. $24-$39. (800) 988-4253 or (619) 220-TIXS.

8 pm: Theater

Chekhov’s classic “The Cherry Orchard” takes a journey through time, from tsarist Russia to California’s Napa Valley, circa 2004, in the Artists’ Collective’s production at the Gascon Center Theater, staged by noted director Theresa Larkin.

* “The Cherry Orchard,” Gascon Center Theatre, 8737 Washington Blvd., Culver City. Regular schedule: Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Ends Feb. 15. $12. (888) 566-8499.

8 pm: Theater

When a young man brings his Jewish, atheist fiancee home to meet his blue-collar, Catholic family, complications ensue in “Greetings,” Tom Dudzick’s comedy kicking off International City Theatre’s 1998 season at Long Beach City College on Friday.

* “Greetings,” International City Theatre, Long Beach City College, Clark Street and Harvey Way, Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 p.m. Ends Feb. 22. $22; opening, $24. (562) 938-4128.

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FREEBIE: Photo display and slide show about Venice history, Beyond Baroque in Venice, 6 p.m. (310) 822-3006.