4 Friday, April 18, 1975 University Daily Kansan THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN ENTERTAINMENT Opera is stage success By DAVID W. TALLENT Music Reviewer Friday night the University Theatre in Murphy Hall rang with the resplendent chords of Mozart's opera, "Don Giovanni." The cast consisted of perhaps the finest artists and performers seen on a KU stage for many, many years. The performance had a fine beginning with the overture, under the musical direction of George Lawner. The interpretation of the overture did not styles found in the overture and in the entire opera was well directed and well executed by Lawner and the pit orchestra. The orchestra played with the finesse necessary to perform the music of the overture, with a great deal of flexibility in following Lawner and the singers. “Don Giovanni” tells the marvelous story of the infamous Don Juan and his many friends. It also romance. It provides an opportunity for many singers and actors to display their talents. Nancy Atkins and Jamie Dibbins sang the roles of Zerina and Masetto, peasant and musician, seriously threatened by the Don's refinancial schemes. They both sang with a quality that conveyed the peasant mood that was so fond of in his operas. ALFRED LATA, lecturer in chemistry, sang the role of I Commendator, a rightfully indignant father whose daughter the Don had wronged. He was haunting quality that literally frightened many members of the audience in the second act. Don Ottavio, the fiancee of that daughter, was performed by Pat Fvee, who sang and performed most effectively in his renditions and recitatives, but seemed to weaken a bit in both her arises. her beautiful voice and the great musicality of each of her arias. Unfortunately, the role of Donna Anna didn't permit Ginsberg to display more of her dramatic talents. The title role was sung by Dean Russell. He was very expressive and confident in his acting as well in his artistic singing, although he didn't seem to be corrupted and sinful as the true Don Giovanni should be. Perhaps the true star of the performance was Carl Packard, singing the role of Leporello. Don's servant. His singing displayed great virginity and extremely dramatic. One would see, but would only have to listen to him sing in order to understand the character he portrayed. Of all the members of the cast, Packard was the most convincing in character portrayal. AS IN ALL KU THEATRE productions, special effects, lighting and staging were very effective. This was especially important in too bad, though, that the three stage orchestras called for by Mozart in the finale to the first act couldn't all be accommodated on stage. Two stage orchestras played on stage when the third orchestra substituted for the third orchestra. This could have caused some problems of balance between the three groups but Lawner was able to keep the pit orchestra on overpowering the orchestras on stage. The production, as a whole, flowed very smoothly between recitatives and arias and from scene to scene. The flow helped keep the attention of the theater audience on the problems of the stage crews. The performance was excellent and very professional. Skin deep . . . ran umnserg, Dallas sophomore, prepares to transform herself for her role in the opera "Don Giovanni" by Mozart. She By Staff Photographer BARBARA Q'BRIEN plays Donna Anna, a Spanish beauty unsuccessfully wooed by Lady Anne, who sat at 8 p.m. Saturday and 2:30 p.m. sunday in University Theaters. Record relieves rock monotony By TIM BRADLEY Records Reviewer At a time when our radios are monopolized by a hard corps of Cro-Magn gruntmongers and mediocre muckrockers who cling like scabs to the latest ground relief almost by accident. I was all set to fire off a routine review on the new albums by Linda Rostadt, Phoebe Snow, Emmy Lou Lotze, and Brantleyamt. Those albums are in roughly that order. While I was working, I put on "Caught In the Act" by the Commodores on Motown. By the time I got to the part about how the sound on Lindie's "Heart Like A Wheel" myself typing in time to the Commodores "Slippery When Wet." Phoebe Snow's "Poetry Man" was a rose among the ragged of rock and roll radio as it made the rounds; the rest of her album is an absolute treat. Phoebe's voice and lyrics could be modified to make a crackerjack sidemember like Zoot Sims, Diva Bromberg and Dave Mason complete the package. I wanted to explain how Emmy Lou Harris' exquisite backpacks on Gram Parsons' two solo LP's and Ron Williams' induced me to purchase Emmy Lou's solo effort, "Pieces of the Sky." And how her album, when judged as a purely country disk (no hokey hybrids for Emmy Lou) is eminently satisfying because of the vulnerability and ability to convey. As in any good country collection, the lyrics are sweetly sentimental and are delivered as such,but we all need a little sugar now and then. BUT THE COMMODORES WERE TAKING OVER. By now I was typing standing up, moving along with their exhortations to "do the bump, do the bump, do the bump, bay be," just about forgetting that Bramlett's "It'S time to turn!" The bump is a little devil. Bonnie has a voice that's comfortable between Ester Phillips and Tina Turner's, and the album would have been so much better if that voice had been less obscured by overblown arrangements and backup vocals. I couldn't hold back any longer. Screeching like a crow and pivotting through the pantry, I turned the Commodores all the way up. There's no way around it—this album's a corker of a cooker. Where are they? They use their electronics merely for shallow acrobatics, the Commodores use theirs to make music. That music is gritty and urbane, with string-taut rhythms, pulse-pushing percussion and exuberant vocals Because of their careful attention to dynamic shading and tone color, even the slower bristle with electricity. Spring is the time when those capillaries start opening up and those prime-of-life hormones start gushing. Put on the Commodes "Caught In The Act" and speed up that process. In concert ROBERT WARD, pianist—In a faculty recital. Works by Moztar, Bass-Buschion, Schubert, Gottschalk and Ivens. ( At 8 p.m. Sunday in Swarthout Recital Hall.) LAWRENCE CIVIC CHOIR Leslie Adams, director. The Remembering Fredric March By CALDER M. PICKETT Professor of Journalism With a lack of understanding that has almost come to be typical of Associated Press treatment of such stories, a writer observed this week when actor Richard Conte died that one of four film celebrities he was associated with The writer then dumped Conte in with Marjorie Main, Larry Parks—and Fred March. If I should ask my reporting students Monday how someone named Fredric March was in the news I am likely to receive blank looks or blank spots on a sheet of paper. For March has been forgotten even by many people. Recently we somehow have been led to believe that it was only the contract players at MGM, or the dancers in the Busby Berkley musicals, who It is Fredric March about whom I wish to reflect for a bit. March was a superstar, but he did not stand out as a super human being, too. He was not just someone in a class with three other celebrities who died. And I do not wish to demean them when I wish and Parks when I say that. BUT MARCH WAS one of the giant names. There was a time, about 1333, say, when he'd have received billing over Clark Gable, as he did over Gary Cooper in the same year. But I'd like to talk briefly about some other matters relating to Fredric March, and then get back to the acting process. You haven't just a celebration. In these avant-garde days you may hoot at me for making such an observation, but March succeeded in staying married to the same woman he was with. Eldridge, for almost 50 years. helped to make the golden age of the movies. HE WAS AN EDUCATED MAN, and he was articulate about politics. He was one of those who were tarred in the forties and fifties for having politics to the left of Cesar Borgia. The headline in the BIC MARCH NAMED RED" was based on a tnorth California politician so labeling the actor for having gamed a rally for the American Committee on Soviet Friendship, or something with some name like that. Though those of us in the hinterland couldn't benefit personally from this next matter, it was always nice to know that an actor like March could shake off Hollywood briefly and go to Broadway. And in the theater he was a star in some monumental plays: "The Skin of Our Teeth," "A Beauty in the Enemy of the People," "The Garden" and "Long Day's Journey into Night." He will be missed in the theater as well as in the movies. I WILL MISS HIM for a personal reason: his voice has been the Huey Long, the Davey Thomas and the Thomas Jefferson who have done the American show, The American Past. For he did such things as to record such voices on the Life record series on American history. And he then handed somehow to be more than just an actor reading a part. And so, back to the movies. In that time we old squares call the golden age he appeared with most of the great women stars: Garbo, Theodore Shearer, Joan Crawford, Katharine Hepburn, Ann Harding, Sylvia Sidney, Ann Colbert. Colbert. March was the handsome young man at Paramour, and then he be starred in "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" for the superlative performances in film history, and for an interesting comparison see the way Spencer Tracy failed in famous parts in a 1941 film. mainly where we saw him in recent years: the smug business man in "Executive Suite"; the father in "The Painted Wall of William Jennings Bryan in 'Inherit the Wind'; the president in "Seven Days in May." But there were the other parts: the earlierparts that—of us will remember longer: I CAN SEE MARCH STILL; the Broadway actor in "The Royal Family of Broadway," clearly an imitation of John F. Kennedy, who opposes Norma Shearer's "Smilin' Through" and "The Barrettes of Wimpope Street," in the latter as Robert Browning; or the Roman legionnaire in "The going into the arena with Elissa Landi to face the lions; the mysterious hero of 'Death Takes a Holiday'; Garbo's the Karina"; the blind hero of Angel"; Jean LaLitte in "The Bucareiner"; a country preacher in "One Foot in heaven" in the hero of "The Adventure of Mark Twain" (not one of his happiest experiences). He moved easily into character parts, and that is MARCH AS JEAN Valjean, being pursued by Charles Laughton through the sewers of Paris in "Les Misérables." March as the broken-down film star opposite Janet Gaynor in "A Star is Born," who walks through a giant ocean in the climactic scene. This Week's program includes Bach's Cantata No. 80 and madrigals, sacred choruses and spirituals March as the Broadway coman in "Nothing Sacred," in which Carole Lombard is supposedly - of radium poisoning. ENTERTAINMENT But especially March as the returning banker-segeran in The Best Years of Our Lives." Wait, wait is it his wife, Myrla Loy, showing the most eloquent back in film history, slowly realizes he is back and turns to face him. But the many of us will never forget. (At 8 p.m. Sunday in the Lawrence Arts Center.) CELESTE MYALL, vilmist In—in a senior recital. Dan McAlexander at the piano. Works by Kreisler, Bach, Debusy, Weibern, Beethoven and Saint-Saens. (At 8 p.m. Monday in Swarthout Recital Hall.) NEWPORT JAZZ MINIFESTIVAL-With the Clark Berry Quarter, the Bill Evanes Trio, and the Mae Ruckert Quartet. A roar at a top ranked drummer; Terry, an internationally known jazz trumpeter; and Evans, pianist, and Evans, Grammy music award winner. (In workshops all day Tuesday in Murphy Hall and in concert at 8 p.m. Tuesday in Hoch Auditorium.) JACKSON BROWNE AND PHOEBE SNOW—In concert. (At 8 p.m. Thursday in Hoch Auditorium.) SHERRIE KOSLOW, pianist, and CHRISTINE KAHLER, soprano-In senior recitals. Cynthia Hunt at her piano. Julian Staley in his chamber. Schumanus's "Papillons, Op. 2" and Beethoven's Sonata in C Major, op. 2, No. 3. Kahler's program will have compositions by Cherubinus, Haydn, Mozart, menotti and Collard. (At 8 p.m. Thursday in Swarthout Recital Hall.) On stage DON GIOVANNI-Delightful serious comic opera about the nafarious Don Juan and his various worldly adventures. (At 8 p.m. Saturday and 2:30 p.m. Sunday in University Theatre.) WOMEN'S WORK-A collection of dramatic works and poetry published by women writers. (At 8 p.m. Friday, Saturday and Sunday in Hashinger.) SEEM-TO-BE-PLAYERS—Formerly the Mead Hall players. Presenting a children's film that explores the "Adventures of Nymr the Spite," about a young heroine on a planet inhabited by sorcerers, giants, witches, shee-cohoops, womples and indubes. (At 1:30 p.m. Saturday in the Lawrence Arts Center.) At the gallery KANSAS VISIONARY ART— United Ministers Center. Nan Hill and Ed Crouchier, artists. (Until April 27.) KANSAS UNION GALLERY—Painting and Sculpture Scholarship show. (April 22 to May 10.) EVONNE KUDLAST ENGLISH—Prints, drawings and paintings. At 7E7 Gallery during April. (Until Julv 27.) On screen Etchings, engravings and aquatints by Mary Hunton. (Through April 20 in the Print Room.) MUSEUM OF ART—"Glimpses of Fugitive Pleasures: Japanese Prints from the Museum Collection." The first major exhibit of Japanese ukyo-e pictures; the floating world dating from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. SERPIO-A Alpacino as a New York cop who becomes a "messianic hippe freak." A mixture of comedy and cynicism. Directed by Sidney Lumet in 1974. (At 7 and 9:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday in Woodruff Auditorium.) THE YEARLING--Story of a young boy and a deer and a movie that children will love. With Gregory Peck, Jane Wyman, Chili Wills and Claudia Westerholt, directed by Clarence Brown from a Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings story. (At 1:30 p.m. Sunday in Woodruff Auditorium.) should see this one. Directed by Phillipe Labro in 1972. (At 7:30 p.m. Tuesday in the Forum Room of Woodruff Auditorium.) THE HUNT-Grim Spanish movie about three Spanish Civil War veterans meeting for a conference by Carlos Saura in 1967. (At 7:30 p.m. Wednesday in Woodruff Auditorium.) GERTRUD—A Carl Dreyer film made in 1965. Dreyer is a Danish director who is noted for studied and detailed movies. Some people may think him a bit ponderous. (At 7:30 p.m. Thursday in Woodruff Auditorium.) Off the shelf SPICY LADY, by Joseph S. Daley* a novel about a sexy chef on television whose ap- pology is the kitchen. The Pocket, $1.50. POLITICAL CORRUPTION, edited by Gerald Lewand-A- volume in the "Problems of American Society, series. It contains information on days of Hamilton and Burr through Watergate, including Credit Mobiler of the Grant administration, Teepot Dome, Norman Adams and Spiro Agnew cases. (Pocket, 98 cents.) Reviews policy All reviews and summaries published on the entertainment page are the opinions of the writers who wrote the book. Please be welcome. Interested people should find the entertainment editor for assignments. Announcement of events to be published in the entertainment section will be provided by the Kansan at least three days before publication. THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN Published at the University of Kansas weekly journal, KU Press. To view a digital animation period, second-class paper paid at Lawrence, Kan. K6453. Subscriptions at mail are $8 and $15. Subscription fees apply to KU's $1.3 a semester, passed through the student activity Accommodations, goods services and employment requirements of the School District are set forth in the General Acceptance thoughef of the Student leaves. The following requirements must be met by all students attending the school: Editor John Pike Associate Editor Campus Editor Cralg Stock Dennis Ellsworth Associate Sports Editor Associate Assistant Editors Chief Photographer Sports Editor Associate Sports Editor News Editor Copy Chief Wire Editors Contributing Writers Photographers Bennett Litton Associate Sports Editor Alan Manager, Alan Manager, III George Miller, III Mike Fitzgerald Edward Miller Ken Stephens Ane Gardner Debbie Gump, Roy Cheverson Bunny Miller Smith, Kathy Turner Bunny Miller Smith, Kathy Turner Bottie Hageman, Rock Grablib Steven Lewin, Tom Billam, Tom Billam, Red Mikkinak, Barbara O'Brien, Rod Mikkinak, Barbara O'Brien, Business Manager Senior Vice President Advertising Manager Assistant Business Manager Debra Dearborn Alabany Carson Hewan Classified Advertising Manager Debby Lyaught Assistant Advertising Manager Cindy Johnson Assistant Advertising Manager Gary Burhc Promotional Manager Mickey Hollon Mike Hollen