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Some treasures found at The Museum of the American Cocktail.

The New Orleans Opera Association will stage its final opera (Don Giovanni) in mid-November at Tulane University’s McAlister Auditorium, a temporary home after Katrina. (Tickets start at $30.) On January 17, Plácido Domingo will welcome the opera back to the rehabilitated Mahalia Jackson Theatre (from $45), and subsequent winter performances include Carmen and La Traviata.

Prospect.1, the largest international contemporary-art biennial in the United States, opens for a free, eleven-week run on November 1. Dan Cameron, formerly of the New Museum of Contemporary Art, curated the biennial, which features 81 artists showing in 100,000 square feet of exhibition space throughout the city. Highlights include Mark Bradford’s ark, constructed from salvaged wood; tapestries by New Orleans native Shawne Major’s; and urban photography by South Africa’s Zwelethu Mthethwa.

The Museum of the American Cocktail reopened last July inside the Southern Food & Beverage Museum after a Katrina-related displacement. In addition to exhibits on absinthe and celebrity bartenders, mixologists are performing demonstrations throughout the fall. On December 8, Tony Abou-Ganim, who used to run all the bars at the Bellagio Hotel and has been both a competitor and a judge on Iron Chef, will prepare classic holiday drinks.

Published on Nov 6, 2008 as a web exclusive.