Best Bets, Sept. 9-15, 2001

Theater

James Prideaux’s fact-based drama “The Last of Mrs. Lincoln” chronicles the last 17 years in the life of Mary Todd Lincoln, who was committed to a mental institution and spent her final days fleeing from a scandal-hungry press. Starring Marcia Rodd, above, with Robert Lee Jacobs, and directed by Art Manke, it opens Friday at the El Portal Center for the Arts’ main stage in North Hollywood.

Jazz

The Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra closes out the Hollywood Bowl’s 2001 jazz season Wednesday night performing movie scores by great jazz composers. Also trumpeter Wallace Roney will perform for a Miles Davis tribute.

Dance

American Ballet Theatre presents the West Coast premieres of Paul Taylor’s “Black Tuesday” and Mark Morris’ “Gong” on Friday at the San Diego Civic Theatre. Clark Tippet’s “Bruch Violin Concerto No. 1” completes the program. On Saturday and next Sunday, the company dances the full-length “Giselle.” The San Diego Symphony accompanies the three performances. Below left: dancers Anna Leceicu and Amanda McKerrow, front.

Music

Kent Nagano makes his first appearance as principal conductor of Los Angeles Opera when he leads seven performances of Wagner’s “Lohengrin,” opening Wednesday in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in downtown L.A. and running through Sept. 30. Actor Maximilian Schell is stage director for this co-production with the Mariinsky Theatre of St. Petersburg. Swedish tenor Gosta Winbergh sings the title role, with Adrianne Pieczonka as Elsa.

Pop Music

Slam-bang extravaganza or statement of artistic maturity? As usual, Madonna tries to have it both ways on her first major U.S. concert tour in 11 years. She’ll play to full houses at L.A.’s Staples Center today, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. The singer brings heavy production artillery to the show, but she also downplays old hits in favor of her more recent music.

Also: Tony Bennett and k.d. lang’s first collaboration was on “Moonglow” for the former’s 1994 “MTV Unplugged” special. They’re picking up the cross-generational partnership in 2001, with a duet on Bennett’s upcoming blues album and a 23-city North American tour that stops at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles on Saturday, on its way to a Sept. 29 finale at Radio City Music Hall in New York.

Video

Pierce Brosnan, Geoffrey Rush and Jamie Lee Curtis star in the handsome adaptation of the John le Carre spy thriller “The Tailor of Panama.” Brosnan, in a very un-James Bond like role, plays a British spy who has been banished to Panama after having an affair with an ambassador’s mistress. Rush plays a local tailor with a shady past. The film arrives Tuesday on VHS and DVD.

Art

The Fine Art Dealers Assn. will present its seventh annual Los Angeles Art Show Friday through next Sunday at UCLA’s John Wooden Center in Westwood. The exhibition and sale emphasize traditional 19th and 20th century art, but 45 vendors from across the country will offer a variety of works ranging from landscapes by Albert Bierstadt and Conrad Buff to a print of the Hollywood sign by Edward Ruscha. Above: Buff’s “Valley With Yellow Trees.”