... From May 18 for one week there will be Sadler's Wells Opera with The Flying Dutch man. Other attractions to follow are a stage version of Thackeray's Vanity Fair with Denis Lotus and Angela Crowe; Donald Houston, Ronald Fraser and Dilys Laye, in The Keep Esmond Knight, Alan Dobie, and Dorothy Vernon in a new play, Mr., by Stan Everling; and Leonard Rossiter, Joseph O'Conor and Robert Edison ...

... Depressing play could not sustain its impact by John Lawrence Pandora, Granada, March 21. PANDORA, by Hugh Leonard was a rather depressing play about an affair between a married man, and a woman who was in the process of becoming a divorcee. Although sensitively written for the most part, and well-played by Michael Craig and Geraldine McEwan, its Impact was reduced by a failure to sustain ...

... Revival of Taverner' THE DIFFICULTIES inherent in staging Peter Maxwell Davies' Taverner are more apparent at a second viewing, and Covent Garden has sensibly revived Michael Geliot's production while it is still fresh in the minds of those who took part in the original four performances during July. At the revival on Septem ber 26 the action was less effi ciently co-ordinated than before ...

... Pearl's pearls THOUGH it is nearly a quarter of a century since Pearl Bailey made her first appearance in London, her true talent has only been fully appreciated by those lucky enough to see her during her recent season at the Talk of the Town. The background to that talent is sketched in by Miss Bailey herself in two books published by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, The Raw Pearl (£2.50) and ...

... 'NO, NO, NANETTE' TRIUMPHS AGAIN THE STORY OF HOW No, No, Nanette came to be revived on Broadway early this year is told by Don Dunn in The Making of No, No, Nanette', published by The Citadel Press of New Jersey and distributed in this country by Literary Service and Produc tions Ltd, of 26 Old Brompton Road, S.W.7, at £3.75. A hit in London as well as New York when first produced in ...

... 'The Visitors' has its London premiere JOHN GARDNER'S opera, The Visitors, given its London premiere by the Englisn Opera Group at Sadler's Wells Theatre on October 16, after a summer Aldeburgh showing, suffers, like so many contemporary operas, from an factory libretto. John Ormerod Greenwood seems at first to be giving us a No?l Cowardish skit on Hindu mysticism, when a commonplace ...

... A MEMORABLE 'FIGARO' REPRODUCED with all the freshness and polished teamwork of its initial performances last season, John Copley's production of Le Nozze di Figaro returned to Covent Garden on October 16 in the most wholly enjoyable ance of this opera one could hope to see. This producer's lively person ality is thoroughly at home in this opera, his pacing and timing of movement, working ...

... Patricia Kern's Rosina HOWEVER RICH in variety an opera company's repertoire, a season is that much poorer if Rossini's Barber of Seville fails to put in an appearance. Sadler's Wells Opera are evidently aware of this and their twelve-year-old settings were on show again at the Coliseum on November 1 in a production that now bears little resemblance to the original for which the sets were ...

... 'Jephtha' THE HANDEL Opera Society has more experience than most companies in translating Handel's oratorio-like works to the stage and in their new production of Jephtha, at Sadler's Wells Theatre on October 31, they have been larly tortunate in tne results achieved by the Swedish pro ducer Leif SciderstrOm. Jephtha was the com poser's last major work and deals with the tragedy arising ...

... 'Scipio' THE HANDEL Opera Society repeated, at Sadler's Wells Theatre on November 1, their production of Handel's rarely performed Scipio which they gave at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in 1967, in Charles Farncombe's version. The work concerns the Roman commander at Cartagena in 210 B.C. and his love for one of his prisoners, Berenice. Unhappily for him, she is betrothed to the Prince of Aragon ...

... 'Don Pasquale' returns DONIZETTI'S Don Pasquale returns to Covent Garden for the first time since 1937 in a new production by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle opening on February 9. Geraint Evans is in the title role, with Elizabeth Harwood as Norina and Gabriel Bacquier and Ryland Davies as Dr Malatesta and Ernesto. John Pritchard conducts. A revival of last year's production of Nabucco opens on ...

... Richard Van Allan TAKING OVER a leading part in a production as smoothly integrated as Covent Garden's Le Nozze di Figaro is something of a mixed blessing, for although it can offer support to a nervous singer it can also make additional interpretative aemanas in oraer 10 maintain the dramatic balance achieved through repeated performance. Richard Van Allan, who sang Figaro on November 17 ...