Freebie of the week: At a time when it seems like anything remotely resembling stability is being ripped up and tossed into the breeze like so many seeds, it’s nice to call attention to something fun and special that has been part of the Bay Area for nearly a century and a half. We’re talking about the Golden Gate Park Band, which at 4 p.m. Friday opens its 143rd season of free concerts in the park. According to the Friends of the Golden Gate Park Band, the outfit was formed in 1882 (the same year Jesse James was shot and killed by Robert Ford) featuring a dozen musicians. It was technically a branch of the California National Guard in those days. The band was an immediate hit with park visitors, and increased in size to 25 musicians in 1883, when a small wooden bandstand was erected. Today, 30 professional musicians are in the band, led by music director and conductor German Gonzalez. After Friday’s season opener, the band plays free shows at 1 p.m. Sundays, April 27 through Sept. 28, at the famed Golden Gate Park Bandshell—aka the Spreckels Temple of Music—which has been on hand since 1900. Friday night’s concert from 4 to 7 p.m. features classic Big Band Era tunes, so bring your dancing shoes. Future shows will take on a variety of genres, from pop/classical crossover to soul/R&B to Broadway show tunes and more. More on the band and its schedule are at goldengateparkband.org.
Briefly speaking: Any show that features comedy from Steve Martin and is called “The Underpants” probably doesn’t need a whole lot of explanation. From the title and the author, it’s easy to guess that it will be a silly affair with lots of sex jokes and solid satire about life and society floating in the mix. Actually, the 90-minute show is an adaption of a 1911 German stage farce titled “Die Hose” by Carl Sternheim, an Expressionist playwright and short story writer who delighted in poking fun at the moral sensibilities of his country’s emerging middle class. Martin’s version is likewise bopping the noses of society’s upper crust. Set in Dusseldorf shortly after the turn of the 20th century, the farce centers on one Louise Maske, an upper cruster taking in a local parade when, out of the blue, her bloomers drop to the ground. It’s a game-changer. Although her husband Theo is convinced the couple’s standing will be tarnished forever, Louise instead becomes one of the most coveted women in town, with a variety of would-be suitors (with a variety of motives) lining up hoping to move into the room the couple has put up for rent. San Jose Stage Company is presenting “The Underpants,” directed by Kimberly Mohne Hill, through April 27. Performances are at San Jose Stage, 490 S. First St., San Jose. Tickets are $43-$62 at www.thestage.org.
Calling all kathak fans: Much of India’s cultural and artistic history is tied to dance. In Indian classical dance alone, there are nine different forms, including the Northern India genre known as kathak, which dates to 4 B.C. and was so named because the associated hand, body and facial movements were specifically designed to tell stories. Bay Area dance fans can catch kathak live on Saturday when the acclaimed Leela Dance Collective comes to the Bankhead Theater in Livermore. The oft-touring Los Angeles-based troupe, headed by a triumvirate of artistic directors, Rukhmani Mehta, Seibi Lee and Rachna Nivas, is known for slightly contemporized, theme-based kathak productions set to live music. On Saturday, the company premieres “Encounters with Beauty,” a work inspired by and devoted to legendary 16th-century mystical poets Kabir, Surdas, Meera and others. The choreography will be accompanied by contemporary and classical chamber music, North Indian classical singing and percussion. The main performance begins at 8 p.m. but get there a little early for a short demonstration by the company’s Youth Dance Company. Tickets are $25-$75; go to livermorearts.org.
The singing swordsman: That beloved defender of the downtrodden in the black mask and cape (no, not Batman!) leaps onto the stage at the California Theatre Saturday night as Opera San Jose opens its production of composer Hector Armienta’s “Zorro” for a six-performance run. The 2010 opera, which made its world premiere at San Francisco Opera in that year, is set in the early 1800s, when California was still under the thumb of Spain, and depicts the battle of wits and swordsmanship between the nobleman Diego de la Vega (aka Zorro) and his nemesis, the tyrannical General Moncada. It will be sung in Spanish and English and is infused with the heady spirits of mariachi, flamenco and corrido music. Chilean tenor Xavier Prado stars as the mysterious masked man; soprano Maria Brea is Ana Maria Soza; mezzo-soprano Melisa Bonetti Luna is Carlota de Obregón, the daughter of the governor; and baritone Eugene Brancoveanu is the villainous Octavio Rivera y Moncada. The opera opens at 7:30 p.m., with repeat performances through May 4. Find tickets, $58 to$215, at operasj.org.
Piano man nonpareil: Moscow-born Evgeny Kissin, a piano prodigy at the age of 10 and a multiple award-winner, including two Grammys, comes to Davies Hall on the San Francisco Symphony’s Great Performers Series at 7:30 p.m. Sunday night, with an impressive lineup of heavy-hitting compositions. They include the Partita No. 2 in C by Johann Sebastian Bach; three pieces by Frédéric Chopin (Nocturne in C-sharp minor, Opus 27, No. 1, Nocturne in A-flat major, Opus 32, No. 3 and the Scherzo No. 4 in E major, Opus 54) and three works by Dmitri Shostakovich (Piano sonata No. 2 in B minor, Prelude and Fugue in No. 15 in D-flat major and the Prelude and Fugue No. 24 in D minor). Tickets, $325-$399, are at sfsymphony.org.
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