Dancers in the Triumphal March of Seattle Opera’s 2008 AIDA

It’s the moment grand opera fans wait for: Verdi’s “Aida.” This romantic operatic triumph has everything in it you think of when you think of opera: crowds on stage, lavish costumes, enormous sets, even more enormous voices, and huge amounts of noise. The plot is pretty standard for grand opera (note, spoiler follows): boy meets girl (in this case, an Egyptian general meets an Ethiopian slave girl who’s part of the invading army,) boy falls in love with girl, boy and girl sing

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Three classic movies from Universal Studios will begin a weeklong run at the Grand Cinema starting Friday.

In honor of the studio’s 90th anniversary year, the Grand will be playing “Raging Bull,” widely regarded as one of the best films of the 1980s, “Midnight Cowboy,” winner of the best picture Oscar for 1969, and “The Great Escape.”

The run ends on Aug. 7.

For show times, call 253-593-4474.

Rick Semple and Jori Adkins, “Veiled Hennin.”

Tacoma artists are going hatty. For this weekend’s Proctor Arts Fest (10 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday) 15 local artists have made 14 giant “hats” to adorn the old-fashioned-style lampposts at the intersection of N. 26th and Proctor Streets.

This afternoon I went along to Proctor wine bar Pour at Four, where Metropolitan Market (the event sponsor) was holding a reception for the Hats judging. The hat sculptures could be of any material, but had to be wind-proof, rain-proof, lightweight, and able to be

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Bryan Rubino, “Crimson Red Bamboo” (“Florals” in background.) Photo: Corey Lund.

Bamboo and I have been arch-enemies for a long time, ever since a house I owned in Melbourne had a back-yard full of it.

So it’s nice to walk through a grove of eight-foot-high bamboo knowing it’s rootless and can only proliferate at temperatures above 1500 degrees F.

I’m talking about the current Bryan Rubino show at Fulcrum Gallery. The glass artist, whose name will be familiar to many from his 2006 copyright tiff with Dale Chihuly,

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Afro Celotto, “Fuoco.” Image courtesy American Art Company.

For one day only, the American Art Company is showing the work of glass artist Afro Celotto, from Murano, Italy. Tomorrow (Saturday) from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. his North American representative will be at AAC to show more than 30 pieces by the artist, who AAC has just begun to represent.

Here’s what owners Craig and Tammy Radford say in their press release:

Afro is from a small handful of artists that are considered the best in Murano and indeed the

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One World Taiko at last year’s Ethnic Fest. Photo: Dick Milligan.

World Culture at Ethnic Fest

From African dance to rumba, Japanese taiko drumming to flamenco, it’s all there at the annual Ethnic Fest in Wright Park. 12-7 p.m. tomorrow and Sunday. Wright Park, 501 S. I St, Tacoma. Free. 253-305-1076, www.metroparkstacoma.org

Danny still loves Sandy in "Grease"

Tacoma Musical Playhouse is rocking with those familiar tunes from "Grease"—there’s still time to see it before it gets away like…um…greased lightning. 8 p.m. tonight and August 1, 2

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He went. He saw. He got really, really cold.

Werner Herzog, the visionary (some would say crazed) German filmmaker who once ordered a crew of Indian laborers to haul a full-size steamboat over a jungled Amazonian hill for his feature “Fitzcarraldo,” again went to extremes to make his latest picture, “Encounters at the End of the World.” He went to McMurdo Station, the American research outpost in Anarctica, to see what kinds of people are drawn to the isolation and the cold there. He found a land of beauty. He found a hive of peculiarity. He captured it

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I made my way down to the 6th Avenue Farmers Market this evening. I’m sure all you folks-about-town have already been there, buying cheese from Estrella Family Creamery and sausages from Cheryl the Pig Lady.

Though today was only the second week of the market’s existence, a sure sign of its future (besides the crowds that were buying out entire stands of berries) was an artist painting a mural on the side of a building.

Jennevieve Schlemmer, a mosiac artist, was working on a scene showing a delivery

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