By MIKE DUNHAM

ARTSNOB

Catching up on First Friday events: If you missed the Object/Runway fashion show, you can still see the clothes at the International Gallery of Contemporary Art through the end of this month. There'll be a "Third Friday" reception for the show on Feb. 19 at the gallery, at 5th and D.

And if you make it to APU, check out Garry Kaulitz’s show in Grant Hall. Most of the pieces are fairly dark paintings suggesting portraiture, but the most interesting thing to me was a set of “iPhone finger sketches.” Apparently you can doodle with your fingertip on the screen of the device and print out your opus. Kaulitz doodles very well. The image of a sleeping cat, done in about five deft strokes, ala sumi-e, seemed to really appeal to the crowd.

More crowd pleasers have been taking place this week at the Alaska Center for the Performing Arts where Anchorage Opera is presenting “Eugene Onegin” on Weds., Fri., and Sunday. On nights-off, things have stayed busy.

On Monday we caught a fascinating recital by Anton Belov, who has the lead role in “Onegin.” Belov, who must be as good a scholar as he is a baritone, crafted a program of Russian art songs that use Pushkin’s poems for lyrics. He presented an animated lecture on Pushkin’s life and work in between songs. In a couple of cases, he showed how different composers had given the same words very different treatments, and he dug up some real rarities. Not that many of these songs are that well-known outside Russia. The most famous piece, Anton Rupenstein’s “Melody” remains familiar to pianists, but it turns out it was originally a song – “Night.”

Svetlana Velichko accompanied. The elegant Russian American Colony Singers sang a couple of choral pieces in keeping with the theme. The audience at Sydney Laurence Theatre got two encores, including Aleko’s aria from Rachmaninoff’s opera of the same name.

On Tuesday, the Opera’s “Dark Night” series featured two short operas and some arias, that latter presented by Margit Jensen. I wasn’t there, but spies assured me that Jensen did the run in Juliette’s Waltz with proper attention to the chromatic run – so I wish I had been there to confirm it. The same spies told me they found Samuel Barber’s “A Hand of Bridge” the funniest of the offerings. The cast was Lisa Willis, Tim Fosket, Stephanie Williams and Karl Hageman. Janet Carr-Campbell accompanied.

The spoof “Malady of Love” featured Lauren Green and Jack Klaushie, Andrew Sweeney accompanying. My spies were particularly amused by ballroom dance instruct or Klaushie’s line, “I can’t dance.”

On Thursday, again in the Discovery, there’ll be another filler – maybe the best yet, a 1940s Musicale based on the USO shows of World War II and both a tribute to and a benefit for men and women in the armed forces and their families, titled “We Salute You.”

I’m out of town at the moment, but hope more spies fill me in.