The Vancouver Opera presented two major events last weekend. On Friday night, tenor superstar Ben Heppner waived his usual feel for a fundraising event to benefit the U.B.C. School of Music and the Vancouver Opera Foundation.

To follow things up with a bang on Saturday, the VOA opened The Rake's Progress, a splashy presentation of Igor Stravinsky's work. Stravinsky was inspired after seeing Hogarth's impressive series of paintings, following the progress of a rakish young man by the name of Tom Rakewell. I saw the entire series which is now housed at architect, Sir John Soanes's house in London. It's a captivating series and I'm not surprised Stravinsky was so taken by the work. Stravinsky was talking up the paintings to Aldous Huxley and Huxley suggested W.H. Auden as librettist. Talk about an impressive duo.

The VOA's Rake stars tenor Benjamin Butterfield as Tom Rakewell. (Here's the part I don't get -- the poster says it's "In English with subtitles." Have things dumbed down that much?)

The Rake's Progress is an innovative co-production with the Edmonton Opera, which debuted the work last spring in that city. This kind of dual-effort is probably a sign of things to come in the Canadian arts scene, and it's starting to make a lot of sense.

"By pooling our resources, each opera company ends up with more than could be accomplished alone," says James W. Wright, General Director of the VOA. "It has been a special pleasure teaming with Edmonton Opera's artistic director--and this production's stage director-Michael Cavanagh on this show. Since my arrival in Vancouver, he has been a helpful and insightful colleague. It is also a great pleasure for us to again showcase the fine work of Vancouver's own Ken MacDonald, who designed Vancouver Opera's Susannah a few years ago."

Three more chances to catch The Rake's Progress, tonight, Thursday and Saturday.

Greek Tragedy:
Vancouver choreographer Paras Terezakis has come up with In the Blink of an Eye, a performance for three male and one female dancer. The piece draws its inspiration from Greek mythical figures Daedalus, Icarus, and Ariadne. "This is an abstract work which deals with faith, vision, loyalty and loss. The choreography suggests flight and fall, balance and time, repetition, lapse and interruption. The focus is on contradictions -- stillness and energy, restraint and wildness." Terezakis began his professional career in his native Greece, and has been working in Canada since the mid-1970s, so this seems like it might be a mid-career return to his roots. With lots of video and lighting effects, this dance show is definitely worth checking out this week.

Fine Tuning: Do you have a piece of art sitting in the back of a cupboard, or hanging On the wall, and you're dying to know if it's worth anything? Every family seems to have a few stories like this -- a little watercolor that might be a secret treasure. Remember that unsigned painting that turned out to be an Emily Carr? What about the little picture that Uncle Ernie brought back from Europe after the war, is it a real Picasso? Tonight, an intriguing documentary on Witness (9 p.m. on CBC), follows two siblings on a journey through Europe to discover if the painting their father left them was a real Van Gogh.