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Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” set extraterrestrial travel to the sounds of Strauss’ “The Blue Danube,” but now Los Angeles businessman Dennis Tito is singing his own tune in space.

Tito, an L.A. Opera board member since 1995, took a selection of opera CDs with him when he blasted off April 28 aboard a Russian rocket for a 10-day trip to the International Space Station (for which he paid $20 million).

Among his composers of choice were Puccini, Mozart, Verdi and Wagner.

Tito consulted with the L.A. Opera’s artistic department to have just the right cross-section of opera selections, said Opera spokesman Gary Murphy. And, of course, he couldn’t go up on a Russian rocket without Tchaikovsky, Murphy said.

“When you think about opera in space, and you think about what Kubrick did with that piece (“The Blue Danube”), and you think about what a powerful image that he created I think Dennis is reliving that image.”

With Friends Like These

For a decade, Ramon Martinez was one of the most popular Los Angeles Dodgers among fans and his teammates alike. But Martinez, who tried to make a comeback with the Boys in Blue this spring, was unexpectedly cut by the team right before the season started. He then signed with the Pittsburgh Pirates.

At a recent Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce event saluting the Dodgers, former KTLA (Channel 5) sportscaster Stu Nahan asked star left fielder Gary Sheffield if he was nervous about facing his former teammate, who was scheduled to pitch that night at Dodger Stadium.

“We released him, so we should be fine,” Sheffield said.

Branching Out

In Los Angeles, fruit isn’t the only thing you can pick out of a tree.

With the help of the “bag snagger,” Friends of the Los Angeles River will be clearing trees of plastic bags or other trash that can float or blow into branches as part of the 12th annual Great Los Angeles River Clean-Up, May 11-12.

Humorist Ian Frazier and a friend created the bag snagger to remove helium balloons from trees outside his Brooklyn office, or so the story goes. Frazier and friends went on to use the device to liberate trees throughout New York from their trashy burdens.

“Doing it demonstrates that even in the odd, little, overlooked wilderness the bags inhabit, people still can use their eyes and hands and brains, and still have dominion over the chaos of bags in trees,” said Frazier, who will demonstrate his snagging abilities at the river cleanup.

Babes in Film Land

This is one film festival at which Steven Speilberg, Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola don’t stand a chance.

The 5th annual Backyard National Children’s Film Festival, to be held later this year in Los Angeles, will feature films written, produced and directed by kids 18 and younger.

Sponsored by the Lego Co., HBO, Los Angeles Center Studios and others, the festival rewards talented young filmmakers with certificates, trophies, cash prizes and scholarships.

So, is it the Academy Awards of the teen set?

“That’s how I like to think of it,” said Betsy McLane, executive director of the festival. “I don’t know what the Academy would say.”

“Unlike the Oscars, we give cash prizes,” she said.