Delray flips the switch on its 100-foot marvel, Florida Grand Opera celebrates a Christmas miracle, and Lynn’s Conservatory students toast to the holidays. Plus, David Byrne and more in your week ahead.
TUESDAY
What: 100-Foot Christmas Tree Lighting and Street Festival
When: 6 to 9 p.m.
Where: Old School Square, 51 N. Swinton Ave., Delray Beach
Cost: Free
Contact: 561/243-7250, downtowndelraybeach.com
Delray’s towering Christmas conifer, named Best Tree in Florida by Travel + Leisure magazine, has been waiting for this moment. It finally arrives Tuesday, when the looming holiday sentinel, positioned at the entry point of downtown Atlantic Avenue, will officially be lit for the remainder of the holiday season—all 217,980 individual LED lights and 18,000 ornaments. Celebrate the glorious occasion at 7 p.m. Tuesday, but festivities run from 6 to 9 p.m., including carolers and a silent disco, with Atlantic Avenue closed to vehicular traffic. Tuesday also marks the first time this season that visitors can enter the tree to enjoy animated scenes—and an appearance from Santa himself—inside, and to participate in the nearby activities in Santa’s Holiday Village, including an ice skating rink, carousel and mini golf. While the tree is free to walk through, ice skating and mini golf tickets run $6 per person.
What: Opening night of “Million Dollar Quartet”
When: 7:30 p.m.
Where: Maltz Jupiter Theatre, 1001 E. Indiantown Road, Jupiter
Cost: $50-$103
Contact: 561/575-2223, jupitertheatre.org
The beloved jukebox musical “Million Dollar Quartet,” which had its pre-Broadway tryout right here in Florida in 2006, is inspired by a fabled, real-life evening in rock history: Dec. 4, 1956, when Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley convened, by a combination and intention and happenstance, in the ratty but influential Sun Records studio in Memphis. Beyond this documented meeting of the musical minds, the story is fiction: Book writers Colin Escott and Floyd Mutrux invented or amalgamated various threads into a cohesive story centered around the uncertain financial future of Sam Phillips, Sun Records’ enterprising founder and the show’s narrator. Supplemented by a live onstage band, this nostalgic rock ‘n’ roll jamboree features cuts popularized by, and predating, these legends, including “Hound Dog,” “Folsom Prison Blues,” “Fever” and “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Going’ On.” The Maltz’s production runs through Dec. 14.
THURSDAY AND SATURDAY
What: Florida Grand Opera: “Silent Night”
When: 7:30 p.m.
Where: Broward Center, 201 S.W. Fifth Ave., Fort Lauderdale
Cost: $86-$215
Contact: 954/462-0222, browardcenter.org
This contemporary opera from Pulitzer Prize-winning librettist Mark Campbell dramatizes a real-life Christmas miracle in wartime. It’s set in the trenches during the first year of World War I, in which an intrepid German shoulder sets down his rifle, emerges into No Man’s Land, and sings “Silent Night.” His action spurs the Allies to lay down their weapons, too, and engage in an unauthorized, one-day communion with the enemy: exchanging gifts, sharing stories, playing soccer. This story, also told in the Oscar-nominated 2005 film “Joyeux Noël,” lends itself to the movement-filled immediacy of the stage, where an adventurous score from composer Kevin Puts propels the action.
FRIDAY AND SATURDAY
What: David Byrne
When: 8 p.m.
Where: Fillmore Miami Beach, 1700 Washington Ave., Miami Beach
Cost: $239 and up (resale tickets only)
Contact: 305/673-7300, fillmore-miami.com
In the music video for “Everybody Laughs,” the frolicsome lead single of singer-songwriter David Byrne’s new album Who is the Sky?, the silver-haired vocalist quickly disappears into an ensemble of actors doing what city dwellers do: dancing, protesting, eating at restaurants and taking photos of their food and, in one of Byrne’s more memorable lyrics, “going through the garbage, looking for inspiration.” Byrne’s decision to blend in with his multicultural rabble speaks to his egalitarian approach to music and art. As on his album-turned-Broadway production American Utopia, which saw a dozen roving musicians playing and moving to joyous choreography, the Talking Heads frontman’s latest release features plenty of help, including from the Ghost Train Orchestra, a 12-piece avant-jazz ensemble. Its accompanying tour, marking Byrne’s first South Florida appearance since 2018, features 13 musicians, singers and dancers fusing visual art, storytelling and music.
SUNDAY
What: Gingerbread Holiday Concert
When: 2 p.m.
Where: Wold Performing Arts Center at Lynn University, 3601 N. Military Trail, Boca Raton
Cost: $35
Contact: 561/237-9000, lynn.edu/events
While this event has been among Boca’s most cherished holiday traditions since its inception, we expect this year’s Gingerbread Holiday Concert to be even more poignant than usual, as it may well be the final time Maestro Jon Robertson will conduct. Lynn Conservatory of Music’s longtime dean, whose direction helped shape Lynn into a world-class university for symphonic music, recently announced his retirement at the conclusion of the current academic year. Celebrate the occasion with jingle bells on, and enjoy a pops program of spirited music for the season. As Robertson told me in a 2022 interview in Boca magazine, the Gingerbread show is “far more celebratory than going to a [traditional] concert. We communicate with the audience. We have a sing-along with the fun Christmas songs that everybody enjoys. Santa makes his appearance, which the kids absolutely adore. … It usually spawns a tremendous sense of joy.” The concert starts at 3 p.m., with pre-show festivities beginning at 2 p.m.
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