No fat lady to sing?

Oh, occasionally some car company will adapt something like Giacomo Puccini’s “O mio babbino caro” in an ad, or somebody’s dad will get scribbled on cabernet and start clearing the room by singing Gilbert and Sullivan numbers. But, these days, we live in an opera-deprived society.

So, it’s quite nice that a local company called Exploding Opera has adapted everyone’s favorite childhood bedtime story, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faust—with a splash of Charles Gounod’s 1859 adaptation for the stage—to an outdoor production to be held this weekend and next at the Gallery Horse Cow at 1409 Del Paso Boulevard. Needless to say, this Faust promises to be decidedly less staid than something you’d see downtown.

This particular show, which appears to have a certain Burning Man aesthetic thrust—I don’t seem to recall the presence of art cars and kinetic sculptures in Gounod’s version—is a creation of director Zach Boyd, who plays young Faust, and Eric Bradner, who plays Valentin. Also appearing is longtime Horse Cow drag-queen favorite Ducky, a.k.a. Britney Spares, as the whore, along with a number of others. Music will be provided by Norm Joyall, whose ensemble, Kabal, is a fixture on the gallery circuit.

Faust will play on Friday, June 18 and 25, and on Saturday, June 19 and 26; curtain is at 7:30 p.m.

Last weekend, Horse Cow featured the return of erstwhile Sacramento one-man band Herbie Kritzer, a.k.a. Gunther’s Dik-Dik, now a resident of Petaluma. After Kritzer’s performance concluded, Brian McKenna, who books Empire (and used to book Kritzer into the old Cattle Club), was quick to chat up Kritzer and offer him a spot opening for Buckethead’s Giant Robot this Thursday, June 17. At press time, Kritzer hadn’t confirmed, but you can see the off-and-on Guns N’ Roses guitarist and his band anyway. The show starts at 8 p.m., and $15 will get you in. Empire is located at 1417 R Street.

McKenna also has a nice show lined up on Saturday, June 19, at Harlow’s, featuring the bewitching textural band Califone, with Rebecca Gates of the Spinanes opening. The show starts at 9 p.m., and $12 gets you in (it’s $10 in advance). Harlow’s is located at 2708 J Street.

In the publicist-fu department, the flack for MC Lars, who won’t have a record out until August, logged a record number of phone calls and e-mails touting his act and the AbsolutePunk.net tour (with Dexter Danger, Lances Hero, Say Anything and Audio Karate), which hits the Boardwalk on Thursday, June 17, at 8:30 p.m. Admission is $8 in advance or $10 the day of the show, and the Boardwalk is located at 9426 Greenback Lane in Orangevale. Good going!