Poetry and opera? The Ridge is getting classy this weekend!
Sure, there is the obligatory smattering of barroom rock, but for this installment of Bay Ridge Nights, we’re peppering in a few higher-brow suggestions for your inner intelligentsia. Oh, and don’t worry, you can still get loaded.
We’re easing you in on Friday. Go to No Quarter (8015 Fifth Ave. between 80th and 81st streets) at 9 pm to catch the Art of B — also known as neighborhood singer-songwriter Bart Tesoriero — lay down the smoothest, most soulful set of acoustic guitar music since Otis Redding.
On Saturday, it is time to take the plunge. Head over to Trinity Lutheran Church (9020 Third Ave. between 90th and 91st streets), where the LaForza dell’Opera Company will hit the highlights from Giuseppe Verdi’s opera “La Traviata” at 7 pm. And don’t worry if you don’t speak Italian or are too soused to follow on-stage contextual clues — a narrator will be there to shepherd you through operatic bliss.
Don’t be surprised when you wake up on Sunday with a few strains from one of Verdi’s arias still flitting through your ears — we have the medicine for that. Bound over to the the Salty Dog (7509 Third Ave. between Bay Ridge Parkway and 76th Street) for the rockin’-est Memorial Day Parade fund-raiser in the history of Memorial Day Parade fund-raisers. Five bands will shake the Dog to its very core starting at 1:30 pm. We could tell you which acts, but you’ll go either way to support the cause. You don’t hate veterans, do you?
And if it is the last Sunday of the month, that can mean only one thing — the Bay Ridge Poet’s Society returns to the Owl’s Head (479 74th St. between Fourth and Fifth avenues) at 7 pm. It is the thinking man’s party in the drinking man’s bar. You can sip Sauvignon blanc and talk Gil Sorrentino with other local literary types while Bay Ridge’s bards recite their original work. It is the most fun you can have without getting into a bar fight, which we don’t recommend — those poets have sharp tongues and even sharper pens!