The Gazette from Montreal, Quebec, Canada • 9

Selena album out today ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER mow THE GAZETTE TUESDAY, JULY 18, 1995 Today, amid a whirlwind of publicity. EMI Records and its Latin music division. EMI Latin in a rare joint effort ill release Selena's of You." the album she was working on when she was killed. The bilingual album includes two English-Spanish duets (one with former Talking Head David Byrne), two new Spanish-language mariachi ballads, and four previously released Spanish-language pop songs. But most English speakers will get to know her through the five English tracks produced by such hot pop names as Keith Thomas (who has produced Whitney Houston and Amy Grant).

Guy Roche (Celine Dion, Michael Bolton), and Rhett Lawrence (Mariah Carey). The result is one of the most anticipated releases of the year. After all, Selena, who won a Grammy in 1993 and was nominated in 1994. was enjoying a booming career on the Latin charts three No. 1 albums, six No.

1 singles when she was killed on March 31, allegedly by the head of her fan club. Last May, she became the first Spanish-language artist to chart five albums simultaneously on the national Top 200. The Billboard Hot Latin Tracks chart for the week ending July 15 had three Selena songs in its Top 40. Charles to play Cornwall CANADIAN PRESS CORNWALL Ray Charles. Buddy Guy and Dave Brubeck will highlight this city's first jazz festival.

The three are among 50 acts who will perform at the Cornwall Jazz Festival from Network moves into Quebec City, but real goal is Montreal presence in Quebec City. But you can bet Kruger-rands to cariboo that CFCF will mount an energetic effort to protect its turf. Montreal's established private English station will tell the CRTC that this market's advertis tion. competes with upstart Quatre Saisons. TQS is owned by CFCF which also owns CFCF-12.

Channel I2's coy. lucrative domination of English TV view ing in Montreal would be severely challenged il Global came to town. MIKE BOONE TV RADIO Nasty business. Stay tuned. up Aug.

12-19. The festival will feature three stages: two free outdoor venues and a tent beside the St. Lawrence River for the main events. The pre-opening gala on Aug. 10 features a two-hour Buddy Guy concert and an all-star jam session with bassist Charlie Biddle, pianist Oliver Jones, singer Ranee Lee and the Vic Vogcl Big Band.

Charles will close out the week with a concert Aug. 19 ing pie is too small and fragmented to support a new competitor. The commission will also have to consider the delicate politics of granting new English broadcasting licenses in this province and thereby creating equivalence in the choices being offered French- and English-speaking viewers. The licensing of Television Quatre Saisons in 1986 gave Montreal two private French TV sta- Scandals did not begin with Chuck and Di. as we'll sec in the second hour tonight hen I he Windsors dissects Edward Vlll's romance with Wallis Simpson.

The Windsors: A Royal Family begins tonight at 9 on Vermont ETV-33. I'lie concluding half of the four-hour series will air tomorrow night. Montreal suburbanites hae it easy. There's inexpensive public transportation that will get you downtown reason-', ably quickly from the West Island. l.aal or the South Shore.

Driving can be a drag on the T'-C'an. Highways 13 and 20 or the bridges, but a bad day means about an hour in traffic. We are laughing and scratching compared to residents of Antelope Valley a suburb of Los Angeles that is the subject of this week's documentary on P.O.V. Home Economics looks at the honors of living in a new development 50 miles outside Los Angeles. People from Antelope Valley spend three to four hours a day commuting.

Spouses have no time for each other: kids are dy ing to move away from this mid-desert Nowhereville. What happens when the dream of home ownership costs your Tune in tonight. Home Economics air tonight 10 on Vermont Not much in the way of original programming tonight, but The Windsors: A Royal Family is the pick of the reruns. Vermont ETV will telecast the four-hour history of Britain's royal family tonight and tomorrow. Can West Global wants to buy a television station in Quebec City, but the network's real target is down river.

You may have seen the story in the Business pages last week about a proposed deal that would see Tele-Metro-pole and CanWest Global working together to "revitalize" CKMI, the only English TV station in the provincial capital. The agreement, which needs the approval of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, would transform CKMI from a CBC affiliate (which currently runs CBMT-6's schedule) into Quebec's first CanWest Global station. If Global gains a foothold in Quebec City, the network will be sniffing around here in a Montreal minute. With all due respect to the valiant English-speaking population of Quebec City, the big bucks are to be made here, not in the dozy village that couldn't hang on to its hockey franchise. Montreal is Canada's third largest ethnic-English market.

We trail Toronto and Vancouver, but we're ahead of Ottawa, Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg, Saskatoon and Regina all of which have their own CanWest Global TV stations. Montreal is overdue for a second private English TV station. And while a local version of CITY-TV Znaimer-vision. with a Gallic spin! would be a gas. I'd settle for Global coming in here to give CFCF-12 the kind of competitive jolt the station is not getting from hapless CBMT.

CanWest Global (which already has commissioned polls on the viewing habits of Quebecers) and Tele-Metro-pole will tell the CRTC what it wants to hear about a vital English television i tions (TQS and Tele- It's great stuff, highly Metropole) vs. one You Can bet KnieerrandS recommended lor English (CFCF-12). everyone from Union That imbalance suits tf) cnrihnn that CFCF Jack-waving monar- those who would like to see broadcasting reflect the city's demographics (they rail reg-ularlv against the radio chists to royalty-bashing republicans. Using archival film footage and interviews with historians and will defend its turf before the CRTC. split: nine French sta- tions.

eight English). If CanWest Global were applying independently for a Quebec license, the network wouldn't stand a chance. Alliance with Tele-Met ropole. however, lends local clout to the bid to transform CKMI. Why is I'M working with Tele-Met ropole.

which used to be Montreal's only private French TV sta- Windsor-watchers, the documentary traces the history of Britain's rulers from 1917. when the Windsors' German ancestry became an issue to a country at war with the Hun. to 1992, when the Prince of Wales's troubled marriage threatened the future of the dynasty The Windsors offers particularly acute analysis of how the royals have used public relations to shape their image. in the Cornwall Civic Complex. Brubeck takes to the stage on Aug.

14. Biddle, who began the Montreal International Jazz Festival in 1979. has teamed with promoters Pierre Brouillard and Don Mallett to bring jazz to the eastern Ontario city. Grant film starts strong ASSOCIATED PRESS LOS ANGELLS Hugh Gram's Nine Months enjoyed the strongest per-screen average among the Top 10 films, but itsS12.5-million take in its first weekend was only enough to place third at the box office, said figures released yesterdav. (All figures are in U.S.

dollars.) Apollo 13. with SI 5.6 million in ticket sales, returned to the No. 1 spot, while Under Siege 2: Dark Territory came in second with SI 2.6 million. The new children's film he Indian in the Cupboard opened in sixth place. Prostitute to deny charge REUTER Somebody at the Entertainment network must love Just for l.aimhs.

ItASE SEE BOONE, PAlit C6 They'll savor Die Fledermaustketart and Veil Dance from Salami KNOW LTON The trouble with megamusicals is that people take them far too seriously. The people who adhere to them become cult LOS ANGELES Divine Brown, the prostitute arrested last month with British actor Hugh Grant, plans to deny a charge of lew conduct. Brown, hose real name is Stella Marie Thompson, will appear in a Hollywood court today to face the same misdemeanor charge to hich Grant pleaded no contest last week. 1 Ie was fined 1 1 80 U.S.. placed on two years' probation and ordered to take AIDS education.

The two were arrested une 27 in Grant's parked car off Sunset Boulevard. Police say Brow n. 23. was performing oral sex on the 34-vear-old actor. il -I fanatics, seeing the same show again and again.

And the people who can't stand them rail on about how they are driving legitimate theatre (especially the really boring stuff) right out of business. But a few people retain their sense of irony about the whole thing. The Pinchpenny II'E -M Es iCf PAT DONNELLY THEATRE Actor was in Houseboat mmmmmaimmmmMimism -F ASSOCIATED PRESS PALM SPRINGS. Calif. Harry Guard i no.

who co-starred with Cary and Sophia Loren in Houseboat and also acted in Dirty Harry Lovers and Other Strangers. yesterday of lung cancer. He 'was 69. Guardino was a tough-talking, tough-acting leading man and character actor whose career spanned films, stage and television. Guardino also starred in the 1973- v.

Guardino 74 season of CBS-TV's Perry Mason, playing Hamilton Burger. Guardino is survived by his wife. Mm a i Market Place (CBMT-6 at Dangerous soccer -nets. Phantom of the Opera by Dave Reiser and Jack Sharkey is a clever parody of Andrew Lloyd Webber's pop opera, written very much in the spirit of Forbidden Broadway, the New York comedy revue that makes fun of all the shows on the Great White Way. Author's a real unknown The Pinchpenny Phantom, currently playing at Theatre Lac Brome in Knowl-ton.

is directed by Nicholas K. Pynes, who says he just picked the script out of a Samuel French catalogue and has no idea who the authors arc. Evidently it was first produced in 1988. This spoofy little musical should be especially enjoyable to opera fans. The action takes place backstage at a two-bit opera house run by noted cheapskate Gaston (Bill Rowat), who likes to hog the male lead roles for himself and provides dressing rooms the size of telephone booths.

Bubby (Robert Bums) and Pristine (Jenny Wright) arc supporting players who want to be stars. Kathleen McAuliffe plays multiple characters, all of them divas who meet their Waterloo in mid-performance, thanks to the homicidal Phantom. He wants Pristine to have star billing. Cheap chandelier If all this doesn't sound familiar to you. it's because you've never seen Webber's Phantom of the Opera.

And yes, there's a falling chandelier in this one. too. A very cheap chandelier. Opera fans will get a special kick out of The Pinchpenny Phantom of the opera. Only they will savor the full irony in the lyrics of Going Batty from a fictitious opera title Die Fledermaustketart, sung by McAuliffe in full bat costume.

Song of Gladness from The Magic Fruit is another classic. The Veil Dance from Salami has McAuliffe stripping, one scarf at a time, as she's vhuiiivi tn nj. kjici iiiz-uiiuu VJI pa tients. Windsors: A Royal Family (Vermont ETV-33 at 8): Left to right, Bill Rowat as cheapskate Gaston, Jenny Wright as the heroine and Kathleen McAuliffe in one of her many roles in The Pinchpenny Phantom of the Opera at Theatre Lac Brome. The dynasty from 1917 to the nuttv '90s.

Biography at 8): John Belushi. Man Alive (Channel 6 at 9): Family violence. Larry King Live (CNN at 9): Gail Sheehv. P.O.V. (Channel 33 at 10): Home Economics looks at life in the California 'burbs.

You Be the Doctor (CFCF-12 at 10): Jad McGaw is host of a quiz on heart disease. Backstage at Lincoln Center (WCFE-57 at Jonathan ably brief about an hour and a half, with intermission. There's air-conditioning in the theatre and a Ben Jerry's ice-cream shop next door. What more could you ask on a warm summer's evening in the Eastern Townships? The Pinchpenny Phantom of the Opera continues at Theatre Lac Brorrte in Knovvlton through July 29. Take the Eastern Townships Autoroule 10 to exit 90.

then route 243 south to Knowlton. only serious flaw is the casting of Bill Rowat, as Gaston. Although he's a talented actor, he would be best advised to confine his singing to social gatherings of close friends. Fortunately, he only has one solo, in the first act. For the second time this season, Jean-Charles Mattel has cleverly recycled portions of sets from recent Theatre Lac Brome shows to create the illusion of the interior of a seedy opera house.

Lise Be-dard's costumes, some of them also recycled, are a witty, spirited response to the piece, which, by the way. is remark singing. McAuliffe has a lovely singing voice and a flair for comedy. But, of course, the understudy. Pristine, is the real star of the show.

Even if it weren't written that way, it would be guaranteed by the fact that Wright is playing the role. She's such an incredibly talented singer, dancer and charmer that wc stand in danger of losing her to a megamusical any day now. Robert Burns, who sings as well as he acts, hits the right note and keeps it as the always envious Bubby. The show's Gary Cooper In Miller on Mozart. -Western Tonight Show (WPTZ-5 at 1 Garry Shandling.

The Plainsman (Channel 6 at midnight): Garv Cooper plays Wild Bill I lickok. full prime-time schedule. Tickets cost $4 (for kids under 6) to 18 Call (514)242-2270..