Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Flowery praise for Bellagio Conservatory; Andrea Bocelli asks for tender love at MGM Grand

Bellagio Third Annual Tree Lighting

Steve Marcus

A model train travels around a giant snow globe in the Bellagio Conservatory & Botanical Gardens on Thursday, Dec. 4, 2014, at Bellagio.

2014 Bellagio Tree Lighting

A animatronic penguin peeks out from the top of an igloo  in the Bellagio Conservatory & Botanical Garden at the Bellagio Thursday, Dec. 4, 2014. Launch slideshow »

The Kats Report Bureau has served as a VegasVille tourism outpost as Momma Sanna visited town over the weekend. Earlier today, we loped over to the Bellagio Conservatory & Botanical Gardens.

One of the city’s great tourist attractions and photography opportunities features, again, a tree selected from the forest near Mount Shasta in Northern California. Its height is 42 feet, and on either side sit oversized snow globes, a first for the conservatory.

Once more the hotel is partnering with Coca-Cola on a charity effort. Share a photo on social media with the #BellagioHoliday and #MakeSomeoneHappy hashtags, and the bubbly beverage company will donate $1 to Toys for Tots. The campaign ends when the total hits $50,000.

Other numbers: A total of 32,000 carnations are used for the mother polar bear and the two cubs on display; 7,000 LED lights and 2,500 ornaments decorate the big tree; the globes are 12 feet tall; 28,000 poinsettia plants are rotated into the display; 750 shrubs and 25 smaller trees are exhibited; and the walk-through snow globe leading into the attraction is 13 feet tall.

There might be a way to calculate just how many photos will be taken during the run of the exhibit, which ends Jan. 3, but I photo-bombed about two dozen this morning.

Let’s leave the conservatory to the pros and rake elsewhere …

Click to enlarge photo

Andrea Bocelli is flanked by soprano Maria Aleida and music conductor Eugene Kohn at MGM Grand Garden Arena on Saturday, Dec. 6, 2014.

Andrea Bocelli at MGM Grand on Dec. 7, 2013

Andrea Bocelli, with music conductor Eugene Kohn, performs at MGM Grand Garden Arena on Saturday, Dec. 7, 2013. Launch slideshow »

• During his chilling performance at MGM Grand Garden Arena on Saturday night, the great tenor Andrea Bocelli was backed by singers from one of the city’s longest-running arts organization. Appearing onstage as backing vocalists were members of the Southern Nevada Musical Arts Society chorus. SNMAS is an umbrella organization for orchestral and choral performances celebrating its 52nd anniversary this year. Its president, the remarkable Dr. Douglas R. Peterson, is celebrating his 47th anniversary with the company.

Bocelli held the audience expertly throughout the show, which was the debut of a series of shows on his current U.S. tour that stops in Houston, Dallas, Chicago and New York and ends at the Hard Rock Cafe in Hollywood, Fla. on Valentine’s Day.

The show was steeped in classics, and he unleashed “Con Te Partiro (“Time to Say Goodbye”), which reaches millions of Las Vegas visitors annually as it is played in the Fountains of Bellagio water show, and ended with an arena-shaking cover of “Nessun Dorma,” the aria from the final act of Giacomo Puccini’s “Turandot.” But along the path to that show-closer, the properly tuxed Bocelli spirited the crowd away on “Amazing Grace,” “New York, New York” and even “Love Me Tender.”

And if you have never heard one of the great tenors ever pay tribute to Elvis in Las Vegas, well, you have not lived.

• On the topic of someone who pays tribute to singing legends, it’s again Travis Cloer Time in VegasVille. He’s breaking for a night from his role as Frankie Valli in “Jersey Boys” at Paris to front his annual holiday show, titled “Christmas at My Place,” on Monday night at 7 at Smith Center’s Cabaret Jazz.

Cloer’s show is always a winner, and he’ll be joined by Paul Vann of Las Vegas Tenors; Niki Scalera, who appeared in “Footloose” on tour, “We Will Rock You” at Paris and “Tarzan” on Broadway; Zowie Bowie’s Chris Phillips (whose work as “Tarzan” has always been away from the stage) and Lydia Ansel; and “Jersey Boys” singers Sarah Lowe, Nikka Wahl and Lauren Tartaglia-Guivas. Cloer puts on one of the great side projects in town. I could go on and on, but he gets a little embarrassed …

Menopause the Musical's 2,000th Show

Menopause: the Musical's 2,000th show on July 23, 2010, at the Luxor. Launch slideshow »

• The lively production “Menopause The Musical” is relocating, and soon, from Luxor’s Atrium Showroom. The show is moving into the Improv at Harrah’s, with an opening date tentatively set for Feb. 8. The last scheduled performance at Luxor for the change-of-life odyssey is Jan. 18.

Written by Jeanie Linders and produced today by GFour Productions, the show has been a Las Vegas favorite since opening in the spring of 2006 at Shimmer Cabaret at Las Vegas Hilton. It moved to Luxor in August 2009, where it has been a component in a particularly strong and rangy lineup of shows with Carrot Top and “Fantasy.”

The change, as it were, for “Menopause” means “Defending the Caveman” is looking for a new venue effective last week. Something similar in size to the 400-seat capacity of the Improv would be suitable for “Cavemen,” a one-man show focusing on male habits, conditions and idiosyncrasies.

Expect it to be somewhere other than Caesars Entertainment resorts, which does narrow the search considerably. Maybe the Luxor has an opening in the Atrium? And I believe I am kidding …

• SLS Las Vegas has opened a great exhibit at the top of the elevators leading to the hotel’s meeting rooms: A display of Terry O’Neill’s photography of rock stars and assorted celebs. He’s a favorite of hotel chief Sam Nazarian, and his work featuring The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Frank Sinatra, Roger Moore as James Bond and many others is featured throughout the property.

And the Quote of the Weekend was overheard at SLS:

Tourist: “This place doesn’t look finished to me.”

Las Vegas local: “You should have seen it when it was the Sahara. It looked finished then.”

Follow John Katsilometes on Twitter at Twitter.com/JohnnyKats. Also, follow “Kats With the Dish” at Twitter.com/KatsWiththeDish.

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