The Gazette du lieu suivant : Montreal, Quebec, Canada • 45

45 The GAZETTE, Montreal. Wod, Apr, 1976 Stern has some vintage violinmbments with MSG Music By Jacob Siskind given a strongly dramatic It seemed a pity that, this American composer'i 75th birthday was being marked with such an unrepresentative work. The major symphonic work on the program was the Beethoven Symphony No. the Pastorale, which was given a reading in which the conductor stressed tone above form. Fruhbeck has obviously been working hard with the orchestra to develop the kind of sound he prefers.

Last night the tone was not unlike that one hears from the Philadelphia Orchestra warm, lush, full and close to heavy-weight. Perhaps as Fruhbeck becomes more accustomed to the Montreal Symphony he will find ways to thin out this Wagnerian opulence for music by classical composers. Ravel's Bolero is a sure-fire finale for any concert, and last night was no exception. Rafael Fruhbeck conducted a performance of; the most famous orchestral exercise In crescendo ever composed that began more effectively than any I have ever heard. And Fruhbeck kept the Montreal Symphony under firm control through most of the performance, allowing the sound to become louder ever so gradually, almost Imperceptibly.

Then the third drum entered and suddenly all broke. loose In the Salle Wilfrid Pelle-tier. The sounds from the three drums drowned out the remainder of the orchestra so completely that one felt rather than heard the incessant repetition of the famous Bolero theme and at the very close, the percussion section seemed almost ready to bring down the roof. The Beethoven Romance was given a Romantic reading one that almost slipped over the edge into sentimentality, but it too had a clear sense of direction at all times. There were occasional wrong notes throughout both works and Stern's Intonation was not flawless, but these details mattered little when he was actually saying something as he played, he Is still obviously the most important musician-violinist before the public today.

In bqth works, Frubeck provided sympathic accompaniments that never overwhelmed the soloist In spite of the large orchestra he was using. Indeed at times the tone of the strings-was as smooth as velvet. The concert with Aaron Copland's Preamble for a Solemn Occasion, which was The effect was electric, no doubt, but as a performance of Bolero the last few minutes were a total loss. A pity, because from the outset this promised to be the most exciting performance all evening. Earlier Isaac Stern was heard In two works for violin and orchestra the Mozart Concerto No.

4 In and the Beethoven Romance, Op. SO. Stem Seemed preoccupied some of the time (how else could one explain the wrong turns in the cadenzas) but at his best this was vintage violin playing. I enjoyed particularly the slow movement of the Mozart, which was played with a poise and sense of calm that were truly impressive. Here Stern made every note 'speak out with sensitivity and warmth and he maintained the long line of the movement at all times.

kThe two outer movements were taken at rather conservative tempi and the finale in particular seemed almost willful in Its deliberate speed. But the violin sound was as beautiful as we have heard from Stern in recent years and the effect was quite wonderful. Lapointe rollicking Sex comedy is U.K. stage hit for 90-year old Ben Travers JSP Jrt TMs ffl if that the story sequence does not justify the strip." Here Ben rekindled the mischievous glint in his eyes and screwed his white tufted brows into a droll wink: "I'd be perfectly willing to see Romeo and Juliet romp about in the altogether. It absolutely depends on the story line." His new hit has no nudes but depends for its laughs on a middle-aged woman's belated and outspoken discovery of the joys that eluded her on her first wedding night.

Travers confided his recipe for long life: "I always avoid the English winter and go some place warm. Every day, I do a little exercise that my wife's brother told me in 1921 would make me live to 100: I lie on my back and put my toes over my head 10 times." Like Lewis Carroll's spry Father William "turning a back somersault in the door," Britain's newest sex symbol got down on the floor of his Victorian London flat and raised his feet higher than the bookshelf containing his cherished copy of Lolita and other Nabokov dozen farces and a score or more movie comedies. Now, as he told this reporter, he is having the time of his life "to-ing and fro-ing" between the Old Vic where Plunder, a farce he wrote in 1928, is a runaway hit and the Lyric, where the racy dialogue in The Bed Before Yesterday that he "could never have gotten away with way back then" has brought him the best reviews of his career. Deeming it, "the funniest sex comedy in London," The Sunday Telegraph cheered that "in his 90th year Travers casts off the shackles of censorship and embraces the permissive society with a joy worthy of an adolescent." Play and Players, the influential theatre magazine, pronounces The Bed "without a doubt the finest play any of us is likely to see, not only this year but in this decade." Twinkling 'at such accolades, Travers confided that he had the "most enjoyable, most rewarding experience of a long lifetime" working with director Lindsay Anderson and star Plowright, even though he did spend opening night "in the gentleman's loo." For Travers it was almost like the charity performance nearly 50 years ago when Queen Mary, "a great playgoer," came to see his farce, A Night Like and he was "commanded to be presented at the end of the second act." "In those days, the Lord Chamberlain, who ran the censorship department, was much influenced by Buckingham Palace, and Queen Mary had a deep suspicion of any play dealing with bedrooms. This one was as near the knuckle as you could get, and naturally I had much trepidation." Travers remembers showing up in the royal box in his tailcoat and lavender waistcoat.

"Her Majesty received me with very frozen features. 'You are the author, of this play, young she inquired. 'It is quite Then she looked at me very quizzically and asked: "Is it an adaptation from the "The poor French, the most respectable nation On earth, but we British always associate them with anything slightly immoral." Despite his obvious joy at the new sexual freedom for playwrights, Travers agrees with his favorite author Vladimir Nabokov that abolishing censorship "opened the floodgates to commercial pornography." He takes Graham Greene to task for having his leading lady strip in The Return of R. J. Raffles, a new com' edy about a gentleman jewel thief that the critics liked rather less than Travers' Plunder, "an old farce about a jewel thief, "on grounds By HUGH MULLIGAN ofTheAP LONDON In his 90th year, playwright Ben Travers has scored with the sauciest sex comedy seen in many a London season and a farce he wrote 50 years ago is enjoying a rollicking revival.

Wags in the West End are saying Ben, who was 14 when Queen Victoria died, discovered uncensored sex late in life, like the defrosted heroine of The Bed Before Yesterday, his new sellout comedy. Laurence Olivier, whose Wife Joan Plowright gives, the performance of her career as the maid emerging from a sexual ice age like molten lava, advances the theory that Travers was ashamed of his naughty new play and hid it in a bureau drawer for fear of shocking his children, all of whom are now over 60. "Not quite so, much as I hate to differ with Lord Olivier," demurred Travers, who has had previous differences with royalty, theatrical and otherwise. "When theatre censorship ended a fe years back, I thought: Well, I'll have a go at what all these young, brilliant writers are getting away with." In the 1920s and early 1930s Ben Travers was as big a name in British theatre as Noel Coward, Somerset Maugham or P. Wodehouse, the author of a David Langton, left, with 'son' James Bellary on Upstairs-Downstairs.

David Langton of 'Upstairs' gentleman of the old school By JUAN RODRIGUEZ for Tha Gazette When Jean Lapointe walks on stage and says laconically, "Well, I'm here to impress you tonight," he's only half kidding. For 20 years he was the 1 meatball mimmick of Les Jerolas, the most popular comedy attraction of the province. A few years back, the duo split up but Lapointe remained one of the most visible "vedettes" of the provincial scene. 4sHe is the "bonhomme" in beer ads, as well as a straight movie actor (in Les Ordres). And this week, in his show at the Theatre Mai-sonneuve, Jean- Lapointe unmasks himself and creates a self-portrait.

He offers us little that we don't know already about his talents, but "dmaquill" is the most complete reflection of his keen localized wit and overall showbiz sawy. Jle opens by demonstrating some of his newly discovered acting abilities, as he imitates a tourist from France telling the natives the shortcomings of this Quebecois The thickheadedness of an Inspector Clouseau comes to mind, but Lapointe's Frenchman goes considerably further in nuance (and pomposity) than Sellers. vLapointe is best when he assigns his absurdities to the famous in Quebeec and Canada. The most immediate thing is his face, with its contortions around the big chin and nose, best revealed in a sketch in which Ren Levesque and Gilles Vig-' neault are trying to figure out who is who. For the "intellectuals in the house the two or three" he does a music-hall stream-of-consciousness of imitations, entitled "Poooooooouuuuuur As an entertainer par excellence, Lapointe likes to break up the comedy sketches with a few sentimental ballads that indulge in his "other" side.

However, whereas he is 'a consummately confident performer when at his most biting, he is stiff and nervous when doing the straight songs. He sounds more convincing when he's imitating Aznavour. Otherwise, "Jean Lapointe, dmaquill" is a close-to-home portrait that contains many rollicking moments. At the Maisonneuve until Sunday. RADIO-TV ANNOUNCER TRAINING Keep your Job and team in spara tima News, Sportt, Disc-Jockey.

TV Commercials, Prograr3HostingrFor your FREE Radio TV Announcing Booklet phone anytime 844-2784 National Institute of Broadcasting. Wornclifi bcHouse 136 LA BELLE ROSEMERE. RESERVATIONS: 625 2434 taumtttan Atimouu) 9 By BILL GRANGER Chicago Sun-Times "Do you know that this fellow who plays Kojak ah Telly Savalas, makes as much money from one episode of that program as I would make in an entire series for British television?" He seemed appalled and amused at the same time, not complaining about Savalas' good fortune or his comparative lack of it. David Langton, the man who breathed life and soul into Mr. Bellamy of Upstairs, Downstairs for five season, is not a mean man.

But his opinions came distictly and sharply across a luncheon table: "Beacon Hill? I saw two episodes. Dreadful. The whole of it was the same as Upstairs, Downstairs, but I thought the content really wasn't good enough, the relationship between family and servants wasn't as black and white as we had it they were all gray people, all the same people. "I had no sympathy for the footman or anyone else. I thought, 'Well, if you get the sack, you will go out and get a But our people (the servants on Upstairs), though very badly paid, did not want to leave the household, their household He had just finished filming the last episodes of Upstairs in London and was flying to his wife's home in Montreal for a vacation.

"In some ways, I'm glad we've finished. I didn't want to be identified with Bellamy the rest of my life but, I must say, in the last month or two one has missed the company we worked well together we weren't jealous of one another we were, I believe, happy." Langton sipped his white wine, cut into his fancy turkey sandwich and talked about today's. Britain: "Class distinction is now breaking down but there are still a great number of people going into service. Snobbish people, really, servants, they like to live in great houses. "I met an old man recently in King's Row in Chelsea, a doddering old man who touched bis cap." Langton paused to swallow a bite of his sandwich.

I was struck again by the poetic cadence of his ordinary speech. He has rubbed shoulders with the Oliviefs of this acting world for a large portion of his 57 years. "This old. man was in service to Princess Mary Louise at 11 years of age. He earned something like 8 shillings a week.

'I'm a very old man he said. 'I was retired with pension as a butler and I would do it all over again, He didn't' marry, couldn't marry, yet he was happy. It is believable. "Am I like Bellamy? I would hope not. My father, in English terms, you would call a gentleman.

He was a gentle man, his only love in life was studying Dickens My mother was Scottish. Well, you don't have a class among the Scottish; theyre a class to themselves. I was born in Glasgow because my mother was determined I would be born on Scottish soil All through the pleasant, tinkling-glass luncheon, he painted portraits of his family, of England then and now, of his life's modest ambitions and of his affection for one of the finest series television any television has ever managed to create. Did he like American public television? "I think it whould be supported by either the government or the public you should have a license fee." He interrupted himself to look at the man from Channel 11 sharing the lunch table. "Ticklish subject, is it? Well, support should be given public television but I- see, these ah things as a sort of begging.

Perhaps a tax, a a dollar-a-set-sold or something returned to public television ft So that launched yet anothec topic and, as we tagged along in Langton's wake, I understood suddenly about him and his contribution to Upstairs, Downstairs: and character share a sense of themselves that is direct and honest. David Langton. Gentleman. A Restaurant of Distinction Seafood Charcoal Steaks Daily Luncheons from 12 noon Tabia d'Hota Nightly from 5 p.m. to 10 pm.

Local producer will make movie of Richler book By DANE LANKEN of The Gazette Montreal movie producer Harry Gulkin revealed yesterday that he will produce a film version of the Morde-cai Richler children's book, Jacob Two Two Meets Hooded Fang. Rights to the book, published last year, were originally sold to an American concern. But Gulkin, producer of the critically and financially successful film Lies My father Told Me, earlier this month discovered and "seized an opportunity to "repatriate" the movie ver- sion of the book. '1 didn't want what happened to 'Rachel, Rachel' to happen to Jacob Two Two," Gulkin explained yesterday. "Many people, including many Canadians, saw Rachel, Rachel and never realized it was based on a Canadian book." That 1968 film, which starred Joanne Woodward and was directed by Paul Newman, was based on the Margaret Laurence novel A Jest of God.

Gulkin said yesterday that he had concluded an agreement with the owners of the film rights to Jacob Two Two by which investment in the film version of the book would be split 50-50 between Canadian and Americans investors. Tbrrnonfod genius or hopolssokohoiic? Leitch i quartet moving ahead capacity and swinging. Last night featured guitarist Peter Leitch and his quintet, with Jane Fair on soprano and baritone saxes, Fred Henke on piano, Brian Hurley, bass and Brian Emblem, drums. One of the nice things attached to following the local scene is that one can witness the improvement of the individual musicians as time swings by. This group's performance is a case in point.

Some will By NIGHTHAWK for The Gazette I The Rising Sun Jazz Festival started Monday night with the Wintergarden quintet and according to all reports, the club was filled to Jazz Alive festival winners More important, he said, the film would be made in Canada, and with two exceptions, using an entirely Canadian cast and crew. The two exceptions are Alex Karras, the former Detroit Lions star football player who will act the role of The Hooded Fang, an U.S. writer-director Theodore J. Flicker, who has written a screenplay of Jacob Two Two and will direct the picture. As for Canadian participation, Gulkin has contracted Montreal native Christopher Plummer to play the part of Louis the Loser, and is also in the process of reassembling as many members as possible of the cast and crew of Lies My Father Told Me.

"I've already got Jeffrey Lynas. Marilyn Lightstone and.Lcn Birman." Gulkin said yesterday. "And Paul Van Der Linden the cameraman and Francois Barbeau the art director. "I'm excited about the idea of keeping these people together. I think we could really build something." Gulkin was equally enthusiastic about working with writer-director.

Ted Flicker. "He's an extraordinary man," Gulkin said. "His -screenplay is brilliant. But he's a maverick and he's always had trouble with the American studio systera. Iie's looking forward to working in Canada." Flicker, 45.

began his show business career in im-provisaboca theatre in New York, ktcr directed TVs Dick Van Dyke Show.Uien wrote and directed the film The President's Analyst in 1367. and last year created the current television eries. Barn3v Miller. remember Peter Leitch playing quite often, a couple of years back, at the now defunct Jazz Workshop. Although Leitch has always had talent, he has developed a new confidence and his style is much better defined, as well as more varied.

The same comment applies to Jane Fair and Brian Hurley, both standing members of Andy Homzy's Sax No End. It's good to hear them in a different context and to see the dynamics grow in their phrasing. Both of them are getting very strong. They are affirming their style and their playing is getting very polished. Jane was particularly inspired last night Brian Emblem on drums and Fred Henke on piano provided a solid texture of background dynamics' and some fine solos.

They moved with ease from Be-Bop to jazz rock providing color-atiofl3 from the ballad to the electronic bag AN INQUIRY IKTOTHE LIFE AjDATHOFMALCOLMLOWrrr: AnNrTJprcxjuaiondireaed by Donald Drinoh with Richard Burton as the voice of novelist Lowry. ACLK-WDcxumen Tonight at 92Q low, bass; and Kenny Rabow, drums. Sunday's competition featured five big bands of 19 pieces and over. Selected as the most outstanding was the 22-piece band from St. Laurent directed by Yves Champoux.

However, a sour note was struck at the FestivaL Someone made off with a brief case belonging to music student Phillip GoodalL who acted as security guard one of the stage doors. The doubte-zippered brief case contains five personal letters bearing Goodall's address and a compositional music project which represents a years work- lf found please return to McGQl Concert Hall, 555 Sherbrooke West as scon as JThe Jazz Alive Festival, which took place last weekend at McGill's Pollack Hall, featured two intercollegiate competitions. Saturday's competition, for groups of four to eight musicians, left a panel of six judges equally impressed by two groups and the grand prize was divided. One winner was Meandre, a sextet of former Conservetoire students, with Fran- cois Richard, flute; Richard Lemay, violin; Tun Jackson, piano; Jean Vanasse, vibraphone and drums; Michel Gauthier; guitar; and Daniel Painehaud, bass. A quartert of former Vanier CEGEP students was the ether winner.

The group is composed of Robert Vineberg, tenor tax; Sieve Montecero, Warren Slo- fee rtj CBMTQ.