Sleeping Beauty Ballet

A government dispute over the budget for the new Bastille Opera in Paris has left the French capital's two other opera companies short of money and may lead to performances being delayed or canceled, according to Jean-Louis Martinoty, director of the green-domed Palais Garnier opera house in the center of Paris.

Strong, personable and fleet of finger, pianist Nikolai Lugansky in four previous Southern California appearances--mostly playing concertos with orchestras--has impressed with his confident virtuosity and good musical manners. At his first local recital, however, Monday night on the highly regarded Jose Iturbi Gold Medal series at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, Lugansky disappointed.

The Harry and Grace Steele Foundation has awarded $1.5 million to the Orange County Performing Arts Center, the largest operating grant ever received by the center, it was announced Wednesday. The grant, to be paid over three years in annual installments of $500,000, will help underwrite the center's dance series and other, unidentified projects.

Whether you're 4 or over 40, here's a wacky winner: "Blue Palm Startles Little Red Riding Hood, Eats Hansel and Gretel, Then Dances With the Sleeping Beauty," free at Barnsdall Art Park's Gallery Theatre in Hollywood. In a departure from their sensual, unique dance theater works for adults, the professional dance duo Blue Palm--Jackie Planeix and Tom Crocker--performs a trio of hilarious take-offs on familiar fairy tales for children.

CD-ROM Fun With Architecture. Learn Technologies Inc./Voyager. Windows 3.1 or Windows 95; DOS 6.0 or later. Macintosh, System 7 or higher. $19.98. (888) 292-5584; www.learntech.com. Ages 8 and up. From New York's Empire State Building to the Notre Dame Cathedral, aspiring young architects can re-create existing famous edifices or design their own wonders in this interactive delight, based on a best-selling stamp series from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Sunday belonged to Taylor Swift, but Lady Gaga also turned a few heads at the American Music Awards. Swift, who won four awards including artist of the year, wore a short gold dress by Julien Macdonald along with Jimmy Choo's Madison shoes. Gaga made her entrance riding a human-powered "horse" and wearing a lilac gown from Versace's spring-summer 2014 collection. Later, she performed in an Atelier Versace Swarovski crystal jacket and pleated skirt, which she removed to reveal an Atelier Versace bodysuit also embroidered with Swarovski crystals with chain mail detail.

The title of this collection of nonfiction stories linked mostly by family relationships (a first book that began as fiction but ended as "literal truth") comes from an African-American proverb: "Every shut-eye ain't sleep; every good-bye ain't gone."

IN the opening scene of "First Love," in just three spare, evocative paragraphs, Adrienne Sharp gives a glimpse of the childhoods of her debut novel's three main characters and, in so doing, sets the stage for each of their downfalls. American Ballet Theater star Adam LaSalle has grown up in the shadow of his parents' ballet careers, always longing to be the center of someone's life.

Among the big movie offerings on television this weekend are a sequel to "Beauty and the Beast," a death-defying drama and a new holiday tale starring Debbie Reynolds. ABC's "The Wonderful World of Disney" presents the 1997 made-for-video animated musical "Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas" at 7 p.m. Sunday. The voices of the 1991 box-office hit--Paige O'Hara, Robby Benson, Jerry Orbach, David Ogden Stiers and Angela Lansbury--return.

With Linda Ronstadt powerfully warbling "When You Wish Upon a Star" while Cynthia Gregory whirled forcefully across a star-spangled stage, the American Diabetes Assn. benefit reached an apogee of collaborative glamour Monday in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. But beyond showcasing Ronstadt's pipes and Gregory's pointes--beyond even its mission as a gala fund-raising event--the evening may have had another major purpose or agenda.