Notes, chords, riffs and beats for all tastes this weekend. Better git it in your soul before it’s overwhelmed with Butterball and stuffing.
The Florentine Opera kicks off its season with a little holiday anti-cheer, Puccini’s Tosca. If firing squads, suicide leaps and doomed love affairs don’t put you in the mood for Thanksgiving, I don’t know what will. The Florentine’s Bill Florescu has tapped director Dean Anthony, who promises a few surprises, including a simple setting by Noel Stollmack that uses projections to take us to the story’s various locations. So don’t expect the same dusty parapets and dark dungeons.
Something new is always afoot at Present Music, and their annual—and quite popular—Thanksgiving concert is no exception. This year, director Kevin Stalheim will once again bring Native American musical traditions to the Cathedral of St. John, opening the concert with drumming and song. 
He’s blended the drumming with contemplative music by Arvo Part and Philip Glass. And also commissioned (teamed with Milwaukee Choral Artists) a new work from Alexandra du Bois based on Navajo prayers. There will also be music by Peter Maxwell Davies and the Argentine composer Osvaldo Golijov.
And for a touch of lighter, perhaps campier fare, check out the Milwaukee Rep’s production of Holmes and Watson: A Musical Mystery. The late time we saw characters in a play by Jah
nna Beecham and Malcolm Hillgartner, the actors were wearing floppy ears and canine snouts. But we’re guessing they’ll bring the same wit and heart to the Baker Street regulars as they did to the mutts in Dog Park: The Musical.
And finally, for those who want to start the holidays with a bang, there will be plenty of glitz and glamour at Turner Hall when Peaches arrives with her spectacle of sweat and smu
t (to quote one enamored critic). There’s sure to be plenty of marvels in the audience as well—Peaches’ fans are famous for constructing their own outrageous looks. So forget about Project Runway this week, and click right past those Lady Gaga videos you’ve been tracking. Peaches was Gaga before Gaga was cool. Trust me.
Speaking of spectacle, it’s holiday movie time again. And if you’re not really interested in seeing the earth implode in Roland Emmerich’s latest catastrophe, there are some quieter, smarter options. Woodland Pattern Book Center jumps on the Warhol train with a marathon showing of Andy’s “soap opera” films, featuring Candy 
Darling and other members of the Factory tribe. And at UWM’s Union Theatre, Lucrecia Martel’s The Headless Woman is a probing and superbly crafted portrait of a woman as she comes to terms with her culpability in a horrible accident. It’s also a fascinating portrait of the class dynamics of Martel’s native Argentina.
