SEE SHOWS SURE TO LIFT YOUR SPIRITS
For dance lovers, the highlight of the holiday season isn’t the Rockettes or “The Nutcracker,” but Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s annual residency at City Center ( 131 W. 55th St., NYCityCenter.org,
tickets from $50). The exuberant troupe’s Christmas Eve matinee Sunday at 3 p.m. gives us something old — Ailey’s signature, high-stepping, gospel-driven “Revelations” — and something newer: Twyla Tharp’s dazzling “The Golden Section,” set to a David Byrne score. Somewhere between the two is “Ella,” a duet scored to the legendary Fitzgerald’s singular scat-singing. But there’ll be no scat-singing at the Met ( Lincoln Center,
MetOpera.org, tickets from $25), where Susan Graham, the Texas-born, 6-foot-tall mezzo-soprano, stars in Franz Lehàr’s “The Merry Widow” Saturday at 8 p.m. Although it’s set in Paris, it’s as Viennese as whipped cream and Sacher torts. Expect lush waltzes, lovely ballads — and more than a whiff of wistfulness.
Wistful, too, is “The Band’s Visit,” with Saturday performances at 2 and 8 p.m. ( Ethel Barrymore Theatre, 243 W. 47th
St., tickets from $ 49). True to the fetching, if fictitious premise of the 2007 film it’s based on, this dreamy musical concerns an Egyptian police orchestra that’s stranded in a dusty Israeli town, where its members are adopted by the locals. Speaking in halting English, the only language they share, Tony Shalhoub (“Monk”) plays the stiff bandleader who relaxes, ever so slightly, into the warmth of Katrina Lenk’s sultry cafe owner. When all is said and sung — and the haunting score is David Yazbek’s best — this is the perfect show for the “Peace on Earth” season. It suggests that whether we say “Shalom” or “Salaam,” we are not so different after all.