VISUAL ARTS: Eleanor Antin, visual artist, performance artist, filmmaker and professor emeritus at the University of California San Diego, is having her first museum exhibition in California in nine years. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art hosted her full-scale retrospective in 1999, and the newly opened show, “Eleanor Antin: Historical Takes,” is at the San Diego Museum of Art through Nov. 2.

The focus is on her work from 2001 to the present, consisting of elaborate tableaux in which costumed friends and models stage moments from ancient Greek and Roman mythology and literature. The settings, too, evoke ancient locales. More than 50 works are on view, including photographs from three recent series, “Roman Allegories,” “Last Days of Pompeii,” and “Helen's Odyssey.”

Antin came to national attention in 1970, with a series of images in which 100 boots appeared in scenes from Solana Beach (where she was living) to New York. She printed them as postcards and sent sets to friends and art world luminaries. Three years later, they were featured in her solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art.

A longtime resident of Carmel Valley, Antin is seen as a pivotal figure in both performance and feminist art. She was recently given a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Women's Caucus of the College Art Association.

Much of her work deals with the intersection of history and fiction, performance and image. For example, on stage as well as in images and writings, she played the part of a fictional ballerina, Eleanora Antinova, in “Recollections of My Life With Diaghilev” (1975-1978). In 1991, she premiered a full-length silent feature film, “Man Without a World,” which she wrote and directed. It's set in an early 20th-century East European shetl, a nod to her familial roots.

The photographs in her new exhibition refer not only to ancient history but to salon and academic paintings of the 18th and 19th centuries, in which artists would stage and render grand scenes from history.

“Eleanor Antin: Historical Takes” was organized for the museum by Betti-Sue Hertz, the SDMA's curator of contemporary art. It's accompanied by a catalog containing essays by Hertz and art historian Amelia Jones as well as an interview with the widely read photography historian Max Kozloff. The show will not travel.

– ROBERT L. PINCUS

Chamber Orchestra gets county grant: $45,000

CLASSICAL MUSIC: The San Diego Chamber Orchestra has something to sing about.

At the behest of County Supervisor Pam Slater-Price, the organization has received a $45,000 grant from the Board of Supervisors' Community Projects Grant Program. The money will help support the six-concert Classics Series at La Jolla's Sherwood Auditorium in the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, the only La Jolla venue in the series that also includes St. Paul's Cathedral, in Bankers Hill, and Rancho Santa Fe's Del Mar Country Club.

The average attendance per concert has increased by 21.5 percent since conductor Jung-Ho Pak took over as artistic director two years ago. But because ticket income, even for sold-out performances, cannot fully cover expenses, the orchestra needs additional funds, such as the Board of Supervisors' grant.

“This grant will enable us to capitalize on the excitement that has been building at our La Jolla venue for the past two years,” said the chamber orchestra's executive director, Tyler Richards Hewes. “We are most grateful to the entire Board of Supervisors, with special thanks to Supervisor Pam Slater-Price.”

Coming up on the orchestra's calendar is a free “Pops in the Park” program, slated for 7 p.m. Aug. 10 next to the California Center for the Arts, Escondido. Tickets are required for “Broadway Delights” at the center Sept. 20. Tickets/information: (800) 988-4253 or artcenter.org.

The 2008-09 Classics Series, part of the ensemble's 25th season, opens with “The Mozarts: All in the Family.” The program will be presented at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 3 (St. Paul's Cathedral), Oct. 6 (Sherwood Auditorium) and Oct. 7 (Del Mar Country Club). Tickets/information: (858) 350-0290 or sdco.org.

'West Side Story' heads back to Broadway

THEATER: Get ready to rumble. “West Side Story” returns to Broadway in 2009.

The classic New York musical about the Sharks, the Jets and the ill-fated love affair involving a young man and woman caught between the gangs opens in March, producers Kevin McCollum, James L. Nederlander and Jeffrey Seller announced Wednesday. Preview performances begin Feb. 23 with an exact opening date, cast and theater to be announced.

The show, which has music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a book by Arthur Laurents, will play an out-of-town engagement Dec. 16-Jan. 17 at Washington's National Theatre, which is where the original had its world premiere in 1957. Laurents will direct and Joey McKneely will restage Jerome Robbins' original choreography.

“This show will be radically different from any other production of 'West Side Story' ever done,” Laurents said in a statement. “The musical theater and cultural conventions of 1957 made it next to impossible for the characters to have authenticity. Every member of both gangs was always a potential killer even then. Now they actually will be.”

One of the changes will be the selective use of Spanish throughout the book and songs in the show, which will have an onstage cast of 37 as well as 30 musicians in the orchestra pit.

“West Side Story,” loosely based on Shakespeare's “Romeo and Juliet,” chronicles the love affair between Tony and Maria, lovers caught in a violent world not of their making. Larry Kert, Carol Lawrence and Chita Rivera starred in the original 1957 New York production. The Academy Award-winning movie starred Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer and Rita Moreno. The last Broadway revival was in 1980.

Red Steinway grand goes up for auction

CLASSICAL MUSIC: What's black and white and red all over?

The red Steinway grand piano used by Lang Lang at last week's New York Philharmonic concert in Central Park.

It can be yours, but be prepared to open your wallet.

The 9-foot piano is on the auction block through July 31 to raise money for the American Red Cross China Earthquake Relief Fund, Lang Lang announced to the crowd of about 63,000 that heard him play Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto.

Bidding starts at the $165,000 retail price.

The Steinway Model D Concert Grand was completed this year and is one of only two in the world. Lang Lang's performance Tuesday night was its first in a major classical concert.

“It has a fantastic sound,” Lang Lang said. “I enjoyed playing it It's a really powerful piano. That's what I like – a piano with lots of power.”

Lang Lang said he has helped raise $3.5 million for relief from the devastating May 12 quake in central China that killed nearly 70,000 people, including many children whose schools collapsed.

The 26-year-old Chinese pianist is from Shenyang, outside the Sichuan area, which was hit hardest by the quake.

“Still it's the same thing,” he said. “I don't care about myself. When something like that happens in any part of the world, we should do something. So many students died because they were in the school studying. This really made me so sad because the school kids, you only see the school bags (in photos of the aftermath). You don't see the kids anymore.”

The auction opened Thursday on the pianist's Web site, langlang.com, and runs through midnight July 31.