A Little Night Music, Nuova Vocal Arts. Photo by Nanc Price

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca

On the stages of this theatre town this weekend, you can seek out an exquisite Stephen Sondheim musical, a classic opera buffa, a homegrown comedy with moving undertones. Plus a nutty (and kinda cool) idea by one of the country’s premium improv companies, always fast on their skates.

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Yes, since it’s Edmonton, festivals are involved. The NUOVA Vocal Arts Festival, a showcase for emerging opera and musical theatre talent from across the country, has already (and amazingly) opened three productions of various aesthetic stripes in an assortment of venues this month as part of their 25th anniversary edition. Tonight Sondheim’s A Little Night Music, in a NUOVA production directed by Brian Deedrick, opens a four-performance run (two alternating casts of emerging artists) in a theatre admirably suited, in elegance and nostalgia potential, to the setting of this 1973 musical, set at the turn of the 20th century: the Capitol Theatre at Fort Edmonton.

A Little Night Music, NUOVA Vocal Arts. Photo by Nanc Price.

Romances and love affairs, past and present, intertwine in A Little Night Music. The tone of a piece inspired by Ingmar Bergman’s 1955 film Smiles Of A Summer Night is seductive, urbane, elusive. Deedrick, who lived in Sweden for a year propelled there by his love of Bergman films, says in his program notes that A Little Night Music has haunted him through his entire career. The production that runs tonight tonight and Sunday, plus June 19 and 21, is a rare opportunity to see this haunting piece. Ah, and it’s your chance to discover the true context for the indelible song Send in the Clowns. Tickets: eventbrite.ca.

The Barber of Seville, NUOVA Vocal Arts. Photo by Nanc Price.

It’s the opening weekend, as well, for Rob Herriot’s NUOVA production of The Barber of Seville at the Capitol Theatre (also with two alternating casts). The Rossini opera is a comic gem of high-speed deceptions and disguises designed  to subvert the intentions of the older generation to obstruct the course of true love. It is (I think) the only opera in the world archive where the plot hinges on shaving. Will young love prevail? Note the opera’s subtitle: The Useless Precaution. It continues its run Saturday as well as June 18 and 20. Tickets: eventbrite.ca.

The NUOVA anniversary production, Titanic the Musical, directed by Kim Mattice-Wanat, is onstage June 22 and 23 at Concordia University’s Robert Tegler Hall.

Rachel Bowron, Oscar Derkx, Beth Graham, Cathy Derkach, Mathew Hulshof in The Oculist’s Holiday, Teatro Live!, photo by Marc J Chalifoux. Design by Chantal Fortin, lighting by Narda McCarroll, costumes by Leona Brausen

Continuing at the Varscona but only through Sunday: Teatro Live!’s revival of the Stewart Lemoine 2009 comedy of altered vision The Oculist’s Holiday. Belinda Cornish’s production, and a crack Teatro cast led by Beth Graham, give full weight to its breezy topknots and a dark underside of post-war damages and secrets. Check out the 12thnight review, and a preview interview with director Cornish. Tickets: teatroq.com.

You have to be impressed by Rapid Fire Theatre’s power play of an idea for your Saturday night entertainment: Improv Night In Canada. Watch the crucial angst-producing game on the big screen, while the company’s never-shorthanded team of deluxe comedians improvise live action to match, onstage. Humour has been sorely lacking in face-offs of late, as a recent poll has shown. This is billed as “the funniest face-off in Canada,” and why would you doubt it? 5:45 to 8:30 p.m. at the Rapid Fire Exchange, 10437 83 Ave. Tickets: rapidfiretheatre.com.