Planning the perfect V-Day date is tough. Skip the clichés—long walks in the park and candlelit dinners only go so far—and check out these events. Everything from the romantic to the ribald, happening on the big day and the weekend before.

Skin Tight Outta Sight Rebel Burlesque
Love and romance get the satirical treatment in Skin Tight’s sixth annual Bump ’n’ Grind Valentine show. Anti-Hallmark twists are promised.
Where: Gladstone Hotel, 1214 Queen St. W.
When: Feb. 9.
How much: $15.

The Threepenny Opera
Soulpepper’s first stab at 20th-century musical theatre, Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s classic study of the London underworld stars Albert Schultz as Mack the Knife and chanteuse Patricia O’Callaghan as his beloved, Polly.
Where: Young Centre for the Performing Arts, 55 Mill St., Bldg. 49.
When: Feb. 10.
How much: $29–$54.

Toronto Erotic Arts and Crafts Fair
This first annual exhibition, sponsored by renowned local sex shop Come As You Are, features such one-of-a-kind turn-ons as knitted restraints, felted condom carriers and hand-blown glass sex toys.
Where: Gladstone Hotel, 1214 Queen St. W.
When: Feb. 10.
How much: free.

Orpheus Descending
Jonathan Goad stars as the guitar-strumming ladies’ man who sets a middle-aged Italian storekeeper’s heart ablaze. in Tennessee Williams’ southern gothic spin on the classic Greek myth.
Where: Royal Alexandra Theatre, 260 King St. W.
When: Feb. 10.
How much: $26–$85.

Roy Hargrove Quintet
Jazz lovers (and the people who love them) won’t want to miss Hargrove’s return to Toronto. The trumpeter, whose past triumphs have included 2003’s 50th anniversary celebration of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie’s legendary Massey Hall concert, is a consummate performer of the bop inheritance—fiery, precise and inventive.
Where: Massey Hall, 178 Victoria St.
When: Feb. 10.
How much: $39.50–$59.50.

Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk
Shostakovich’s 1934 opera scandalized Stalin and was banned until 1962. It’s not difficult to see why: the plot is rife with more infidelity and murder than Desperate Housewives. The perfect antidote to V-Day schmaltz.
Where: Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, 145 Queen St. W.
When: Feb. 10.
How much: $20–$275.

Lullabye Arkestra
The sexiest couple in Toronto indie rock, Justin Small and Katia Taylor, headlines the final night of the Wavelength Music Series’ seventh anniversary celebration.
Where: Sneaky Dee’s, 431 College St.
When: Feb. 11.
How much: PWYC.