The Philadelphia Inquirer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 97

section Sunday, May 24, 1987 A season unlike any other for orchestra fte 5f(rikbfe Inquirer entertainment art The battle of Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) against the Empire captured the imagination of moviegoers and was followed by two more 'Star Wars' films. By Daniel Webster Inquirer Music Critic The most interesting and vital sea- son in the Philadelphia Orchestra's history has ended. The players are on vacation, ready- ing a strike fund while negotiations j. for a new contract proceed at a slug- gish tempo. Conductor Riccardo I Muti has whirled away to Milan, ful- filling his unrelenting schedule of operatic performances.

Management is deeply involved in realizing its planned new concert hall. Almost nothing but aural memory remains to remind the city of performances that constituted an intellectual, artis- tic and social achievement unlike any other in the orchestra's life. Those are regions in which the orchestra has rarely functioned, a fact that Muti is determined to change. Speaking last week at the 1 University of Pennsylvania's graduation exercises, he reminded his audi- ence that the quality of life is di- rectly related "to the freedom to seek intellectual challenges." His talk I ranged widely over life and art, call- ing them inseparable and mutually inspiring; his words were both a crit- icism of materialism and tunnel vi- sion and a buoyant reminder of the artist's responsibilities in a world constantly reliving the same grind- ing problems. Although his speech was general- ized, some of what he said was prompted by his experience this season as he introduced the music of today to audiences long trained to think of music as something comfort- ably from the past.

The season included not only the premieres of four commissioned works, but also a rare series in which Polish composer Witold Lutoslawski conducted a full program of his own music. On top of that, the orchestra went back over the music of the last 50 years to see what it had neglected. That program, called "second hearings" and funded by Bell Telephone, actually provided more premieres than the commissioning process did, for this orchestra had fallen deeply in arrears in its debt to American composers and, by extension, to Phil- adelphia's cultural life. From his first days in Philadelphia, Muti had committed himself to this kind of programming. His first plan was a massive festival to bring composers here for an intensive period of concerts, lectures and round-tables; when funding for that scheme did not materialize, he began to press for commissions and a systematic survey of American composers.

Seen mathematically, in the context of 30 programs, the amount of new and unfamiliar music, in the season just past was relatively small. Besides the commissioned pieces and Lutoslawski's choices, there were works by only seven other living (See ORCHESTRA on 5-H) is-world success f-th Out-o 10 years ago, the Force was with George Lucas' 'Star Wars' at the box office By Steven Rea Inquirer Stall Wriler 111 en years ago today, the Force wasn't with anyone, Chewbacca was re 4K ffijw fM fee? a KV- w-. -T if 1 something third men put between lip and glim, and a Light was what kids asked for they wanted one of those that come in little rolls. Saber when mints Si. Chewbacca Darth Vade; C-3PO -Jl i Obi-Wnn Kenobi4 Princess Leia 7 1 R2-D2 Ten years ago tomorrow, all that changed: On a dark screen dotted with the flickering lights of countless distant spheres, the storybook phrase A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away appeared.

What followed rumbling spaceships the size of cities, shaggy 7-foot laser-slinging creatures, an all-in-black, all-ominous helmeted guy who sounded like Beelzebub on a respirator, lovable droids, Luke Skywalker, Han Solo and Princess Leia well, it was Star Wars. And movies, and bumped Star 'Wars with the release of E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial in 1980. However, Lucas' trilogy Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back 119801 and Return of the Jedl 11983 occupy second, third and fifth place in the list of top-grossing pictures, making it the highest-grossing series in history.) Star Wars "created the blockbuster mentality in Hollywood," noted Dale Pollock, author of a (See "STAR WARS" on 12-H) -Wars was showing in 1,098 aters. It went on to win seven Academy Awards (losing best picture to Woody Allen's Annie It made stars of Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher.

And, most important in the eyes of awestruck Hollywood executives, it shattered all box-office records, becoming the most successful movie in history, selling more than $400 million worth of tickets in North America alone. (Lucas' buddy, Steven Spielberg, maybe even mankind (OK, a slight exaggeration), would never be the same. Released on May 25, 1977, in 43 theaters nationwide, George Lucas' Star Wars turned down by United Artists and Universal before Twentieth Century Fox coughed up $9 million on the risky space opera with a no-name cast quickly became a humon-gous, gargantuan, off-the-seismo-graph, boffo runaway hit. By August that same year, Star Han Solo ML 4.uH.j) Examining Wyeth's 'Helga' art Has interest in Andrew Wyeth's "secret model" precluded an objective look at the works, which go on display today at the National Gallery! sketches that Wyeth made of a Chadds Ford neighbor, Helga Testorf, between 1971 and 1985, when she stopped posing for him. They aren't finished pictures, because they weren't intended to be.

They represent an ongoing process of visual and psychological reconnaissance that Wyeth periodically summarized in a finished work a drybrush watercolor or a tempera. What is interesting and instructive about this exhibition is not so much the individual pictures, which are uneven in quality and tend to be repetitious, but the process they document. Part of the interest is historical; prolonged (See WYETH on 10-H) By Edward J. Sozanski Inquirer Art Critic WASHINGTON The exhibition of Andrew Wyeth's "Helga pictures" that opens here today at the National Gallery of Art comes both as a relief and a challenge. The pictures already have generated so much controversy that one is glad to finally have the opportunity to evaluate them in the flesh.

But therein lies. the challenge: Has the controversy over Wyeth's involvement with a "secret model" precluded an objective look at the Helga suite, as it's called? When we look at these 125 tempera paintings, watercolors and drawings, will we be able to see what's actually there and not what the media have conditioned us to expect? One hopes so, because the Helga exhibition, which will run through Sept. 27, is neither as sublime as Wyeth's partisans would wish or as the National Gallery would have us believe nor as meretricious and irrelevant as his severest critics have already proclaimed it to be. As art exhibitions go, "Andrew Wyeth: The Helga Pictures" is a conversation piece. It contains a few fine pictures, a few seductively pleasant ones and a number of rather ordinary ones.

Given the nature of the material from which the show was drawn, it couldn't be 1 otherwise. The bulk of the pictures consists of drawings and in the exhibit "Andrew Wyeth: The Helga Pictures. TV drama of a couple's anguish NBC's new schedule looks 5e .11.111 U.LI 1 like a winner, ad execs say room, Wendy goes into early labor. The child, born three months premature, weighs a scant 1.4 pounds. Rushed into the hospital's neonatal care unit, the infant, whose identification card is labeled "Baby Girl Scott," is subjected to state-of-the-art medical care in an attempt to save her life.

Based on interviews with doctors, child-development specialists and more than 100 families of premature children, the events that follow are a crash-course in contemporary neonatology. Providing the balance between a med-school lecture and an evening's entertainment is director Korty, one of the most respected veterans of the made-for-TV movie. His films, ranging from the award-winning The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (See TELEMOVIE on 8-H) acting, the undeniable poignancy of its subject and, most adventurously, an absolute refusal to be evenhand-ed. You may find yourself yelling at your TV screen tonight, so provocative is the argument posed by the filmmakers. John Lithgow and Mary Beth Hurt portray Neil and Wendy Scott, who are expecting their first child.

This happy yuppie couple spend the opening moments of Baby Girl Scott preparing a bedroom for the child's impending arrival, painting a smiling face on the door for the daughter their pediatrician has told them to expect. Director John Korty shoots these dreamily sunny scenes for what they are: the ominous prelude to something very close to a horror movie. A few days after fixing up the baby's By Ken Tucker Inquirer TV Critic By now, it's a cliche to say that disease-of-the-week telemovies have become a cliche. You begin to wonder whether TV will ever run out of the physical and emotional maladies that lend themselves to the sort of careful dramatization always described as "sensitive" industry code for "so balanced as to be bland." In this atmosphere, CBS's Baby Girl Scott (tonight at 9 on Channel 10) is an interesting anomaly. Yes, it tackles another "problem" the effects of premature childbirth and yes, it does its sensitive best to wring tears from viewers.

But Baby Girl Scott holds your attention even after you begin to feel manipulated. It accomplishes this through a combination of excellent The name Ken Russell means controversy. With opera or film, the director always seems to stir up both audiences and critics. At the movies, Page 2-H. Last-minute changes by television stations update The Inquirer supplement TV Week, Page 8-H.

What will the Institute of Contempo---rary Art's new home be like? Sur- roundings, Page 10-H. analyzing TV found none who be lieve that JJBC will fall off its perch in the autumn, "NBC will agafn be the No. 1 network," said Steve Grubbs, senior vice president, national television buying, for Batten Barton Durstin Os-born Inc. "No one js going to challenge unless there are a lot of surprises." "The NBC schedule continues to look strong," said Paul Isacsson, director of broadcasting programming and purchasing for Young Rubi-cam. "There are so many new shows on the other two networks that they are unlikely to unseat NBC." "I assume they'll be No.

1," agreed (See NETWORKS on 8-H) By Lee Winfrey Inquirer TV Writer After examining the fall television schedules announced this month, advertising executives who know TV best think NBC will again be the most widely watched network at night next season. That would make the third straight prime-time win for high-rolling NBC (Channel 3). So far, the ad executives have formulated no prevailing opinion as to whether CBS (Channel 10) will duplicate its second-place finish of last season, or whether last-place ABC (Channel 6) will be able to climb out of the cellar. A survey of seven New York ad executives who make their living by Movie directory 2-H Pod albums 4-H Classical records 3-H Country music 3-H Going-out guide 6-H Radio today 9-H.