FESTIVALS GUIDE 1970 This is not a comprehensive guide, as

a number of festivals taking place later in the year have not yet finalised their programmes. Dates and schedules given below are, of course, subject to alteration.

GLYNDEBOURNE

Two revivals (Die Zauberfiiite, which has already opened the festival and which re- turns, with Myer Fredman conducting and some major cast changes, on 21 June; and Eugene Onegin); two new productions: La Calisto by Cavalli, realised and conducted by Raymond Leppard, produced by Peter Hall, designed by John Bury, and Rossini's 11 Turco in Italia; and one world premiere — Nicholas Maw's The Rising of the Moon: librettist Beverley Cross, conductor Ray- mond Leppard, producer Colin Graham and designer Osbert Lancaster , . -. A pro- mising season.

CHICHESTER

Peer Gynt and Robert Bolt's new play Vi vat! Vivat Regina! (both currently play- ing), Arms and the Man and The Alchemyst — for more about which, keep a wary eye on our theatre column,

PITLOCHRY

Shaw and Ibsen; The Lion in Winter; a farce by Philip King and a comedy by Alan Melville. It's a pleasant enough idea, but oh what a waste of such a captive audience!

LLANDAFF: 31 May-10 June The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, the New York Chamber Soloists, the BBC Welsh Orchestra plus a clutch of dis- tinguished performers: Ossian Ellis, Peter Frankl, Janet Price, Helen Watts etc. And two commissioned works, by Mathias and Metcalf, to add a touch of novelty to an otherwise sound but dullish programme.

RICHMOND: 31 May-7 June '

Small but distinctly promising, with poetry readings by Roy Fuller, George Macbeth and the Poet Laureate. Malcolm William- son's The Growing Castle, jazz, Donald Swann and a choral concert.

BATH: 5-14 June Distinct signs—what with brass bands, glues, ice skating and Victorian breakfasts i —of this festival's going lowbrow. The music won't be up to the usual standard, despite the (active) presence of Tippett, the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields, the Juilliard String Quartet, the Lso, Sutherland. Cantelo, Bishop, Malcolm and Hacker. Mel- vyn Bragg pays tribute to Wordsworth.

ALDEBURGH: 5-28 June An impressive programme to celebrate the -first festival since the great fire: the opening concert will be attended by the Queen; the EOG will present Mozart's Idomeneo, Britten's Curlew River and The Rape of Lucretia; there's to be a 70th birth- day tribute to Aaron Copland, the first per- formance outside the USSR of Shostakovich's 14th Symphony, the world premiere of Henze's song cycle El Cimarron, concerts of Spanish music old and new and a lecture on Blake by Lord Clark. Appearing will be, of course, Britten, Hoist and Pears, plus Harper, Ledger, Tear, Shirley-Quirk, de Peyer, Williamson, Rostropovich, Vishnev- skaya, Bream and Malcolm; Peggy Ash- croft and Stevie Smith; church crawls, T'ai Chi and ballooning.

STOUR: 16-21 June

Chamber music in general and Purcell in particular: this year's harpsichord recital is by the American Robert Conant; mean- while, most of the hard work, as usual, falls on the capable shoulders of the Deller Con- sort.

LUDLOW: 19 June-5 July This year's play (as always, within the castle walls)-is Henry IV Part /. Other enter- tainments include a bicentenary tribute to Beethoven by the Halle.

BEXHILL-ON-SEA: 24-30 June

Three concerts by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, something called the Symphonic Band pf Susquehanna Univer- sity, a flamenco recital and Donald Swann,

CHELTENHAM: 3-12 July

Several themes have been incorporated in this year's (highly distinguished) pro- gramme: new American music On particu- lar Charles Ives), celebration concerts to mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of Bar- tok's, death,,1970's ; obligatory nod to

Beethoven and, of course, the usual, admin able emphasis on new British music, with first performances of works by Alwyn, Bennett, Dickinson, Searle, Taverner and Tippett (amongst others), some of whom are also taking part in the festivities. Other events of note will be the first modern re- vival of Elgar's Caraetacus and the first British performance of Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 12. Performers include Arrau, Bolt, Bliss, Brymer, Frankl, Goldberg, Holliger, Ogdon, Preston; also Musgrave and Maxwell Davies.

CHESTER: 3-12 July Chiefly musical in content (NB: no mys- tery plays this year) and traditional in flavour, with some powerful musicians attending, e.g. the Prague Symphony Orchesfra. Also Micheal Mac Liammdir and the Northern Dance Theatre.

CITY OF LONDON: 4-17 July A new feature this year is a small poetry festival organised by Edward Lucie-Smith. Otherwise the diet is predominantly musical, with the NPO, Eco, the Moscow Chamber Orchestra, the Lso and the Menuhin Festi- val Orchestra all taking part, as well as the Borodin and Juilliard Quartets, the Early Music Consort and the Music Theatre Ensemble. Alexander Goehr (conducting the MTE) presents the world premiere of his Shadowplay 2; there are first London per- formances of works by Birtwistle and Berkeley, plus an impressive-sounding Schutz concert and a first performance in orchestrated form of Walton's Songs for the Lord Mayor's Table.

NOTTINGHAM: 11-26 July Large and imaginative programme, cover- ing everything from jousting to balloon races. The Prague Symphony Orchestra, the RPO, the English Sinfonia, the Philip Jones Brass Ensemble will aH be on parade; one first performance and a number of famous performers: Boult, Horenstein, Baker, Shirley-Quirk, Goossens, Schwarz- kopf. Also the premiere of a new play by Fry, puppets, Gilbert and Sullivan, archery and mediaeval feasting.

CAMBRIDGE: 16-31 July The proposed programme shows con- siderably more flair than one had come to expect from this festival: the Moscow Chamber Orchestra, Barbirolli and the Halle, the Galliard Harpsichord Trio and the Bach Choir. A commissioned work by Arnold Cooke, Blow's masque Venus and Adonis, madrigals on the Cam and, treat of treats, Lila Kedrova in The Seagull at the Arts.

BATTLE: 17-26 July Best evening's entertainment promises -to be a talk on Wellington by Elizabeth Long- ford. Also a concert by the Camerata String Orchestra, a show with Donald Swann.

HASLEMERE : 17-25 July Second oldest (after Three Choirs) annual festival in Britain. Carl Dolmetsch and his faithful Consorts of Recorders and Viols do most of the work, but there are a number of guest artists to boot. The programme is traditionally devoted to 16th, 17th and 18th century music and this year includes amongst a legion of unfamiliar names works by Pepusch, Zipoli, Prowo, Muffatt, Henry VI, de Nebra and Hook.

SOUTHERN CATHEDRALS: 23-26 July

To be held at Salisbury this year, where

the cathedral choristers will be joined by their colleagues from Winchester and Chichester. The emphasis is on traditional and mainly English cathedral music and will include works by (amongst others) Lassus, Philips, Byrd, Blow, Stanford and Britten.

KING'S LYNN: 24 July-1 August

Sir Edward Boyle opens this year's pro• ceedings, which celebrate the festival's twentieth anniversary. Barbirolli and the Halle, the Philip Jones Brass Ensemble. Britten and Bream will be performing; so, in other media, will Dame Sybil Thorndike, Emlyn Williams and Fenella Fielding, plus a tribute to Noel Coward with Joyce Gren- fell, Cleo LaMe and Richard Rodney Bennett.

ROYAL NATIONAL EISTEDDFOD: 3-8 August The usual mixture of exotic, chauvinistic mummery, high-flown verse-making and good to indifferent music (Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, male voices and county youth orchestra) plus drama, acting competitions and something called Gweledigaethau'r Bardd Cwsg.

HARROGATE: 4-15 August This is Harrogate's fifth festival of arts and sciences (cost, apparently, £35,000). Recitals by Schwarzkopf, Radu Lupu and McCabe; concerts by the John Alldis Singers, the Philip Jones Brass Ensemble, the taco conducted by. Henze and Barenboim. The Eon presents Britten's Church Parables, Angus Wilson lectures on Dickens, the Northern Dance Theatre dances and the science theme, predictably, is conservation.

THREE CHOIRS: 23-28 August

It's over 250 years since the originators of this festival first met 'to make musick together,' which makes this the oldest festival in existence. Beethoven's Mass in C, a highlight of this year's events at Hereford (plus, the same evening, Strauss's Horn Concerto No. 1 and Berkeley's Magnificat) postdated the festival by ninety years! Also being given, music by Ginastera (first per- formance), Copland, and first performances of works by Hoddinott, Brown, Kelly and McCabe.

EDINBURGH: 23 August-12 September Three major themes this year : Beethoven, with performances of his symphonies by the NPO, LPO, BBC so and the Stockholm Philharmonic, as well as a lieder recital by Fischer-Dieskau, tributes from Barenboim and wife in tandem and some staunch stringwork by the Amadeus Quartet; Czech composers (as well as the presence of the National Theatre from Prague); and a generous allocation of performances to recent works by Henze—who also takes an active part in the festival. Other per- formers include the Frankfurt Municipal Opera (Prokofiev's The Fiery Angel); con- ductors Barbirolli, Downes, Giulini, Davis, Dorati, Szell, Haitink; singers Harper, Baker, Domingo, Dowd; instrumentalists Holliger, Frankl, Anda, Brendel; plus appearances by Renaud and Barrault with the New York Chamber Soloists. (Can it be that there are no new works to be per- formed this year?) Other festival delights: the Deutsche Theater from Berlin the. Teatro Libero from Rome, Prospect, the Nederlands Dans Theater, a 'multimedia rock musical' from the us called Stomp and a retrospective of films directed by Claude Chabrol.