The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 68

i Tr ii i i tm i 11 i nvi i i i i i i i i 1 b8 ine oosiori uiuoe uiursuay, uweinlier i-i, 31 Caldwell in bid to revive 3 Aooltjlon St. tJjHIlt azz suppar e)ub Frl. 8l. Dc. 1SH PHIL WILSON ANDY McQHEE and THE IEW UlU WHITE JIIELBM NYC's Beaumont Theater NEW YEAR'S EVE EXTRAVAGANZA BUDDY TATE SCOTT HAMILTON Dlnnar Dancing Champagn Limitad Raaarvatlona Tanya Tucker Rock concert, Paradise, 967 Commonwealth Boston.

8 p.m. $4.50. Tony Bird South African folk music, Passim's, 47 Palmer Cambridge. 8:30 p.m. $4.

Sun Ra and his Solar Arkestra Avant garde jazz, Modern Theater, Washington street, Boston 8:30 p.m. $8. PETER HANUKE'S A SORROW BEYOND DREAMS SARAH CALDWELL repertory goal FASCINATING" ELLIOT NORTON. HER-AM All breeds Benched Demonstrations EASTERN DOG CLUB Dec. 16 9 a.m.-10 p.m.

HYNES AUDITORIUM Prudential Center Adults $3.50 Children $1.25 fed by JIM DANDY CAMBRIDGE ENSEMBLE 1151 MASS. AVE. TONIGHT AT 8:00 P.M. TONITE TOM'W. AT 8 P.M er- a Spec Mat Weds 1220 1 pn: All tickets $5 1 Pifec THE OnatlbT r55 CHAALES WERNER MOORE DECEMBER HI Tij'y SPINGOU) THEATER 8RAN0EIS UNIVERSITY yT- 8344343 II II Ei lie II By Richard Dyer and Kevin Kelly Globe Staff Lincoln Center's Vivian Beaumont Theater, dark since the summer of 1977, will reopen late next year or early in 1980 under a new five-person directorate that will consist of Sarah Caldwell, Woody Allen, Liviu Ciulci, Robin Phillips and Ellis Rabb, with Richmond Crinkley as executive director and Edward Albee as company playwright.

Opened in 1964 to house and develop an American repertory theater, the Beaumont has had an extremely troubled history; the new directorate will be the building's fourth different artistic management, following Joseph Papp, who withdrew last summer. The announcement came yesterday in a story leaked to the New York Times. Sarah Caldwell, who is best known of course for her work in opera, confirmed yesterday afternoon that discussions about the directorate have been going on for about a year and a half: "Richmond Crinkley at 38 is a very brilliant young man. He has put this together very care fully and adroitly. The money aspects have been carefully considered, and I am very glad that I don't have to concern myself with them.

In the first years each play will be cast separately, with the hope of eventually developing a repertory company. Now the group of us needs to get together to develop an interesting season." The only other member of the directorate that could be reached for comment yesterday was Robin Phillips, artistic director of the Stratford Festival in Canada. He issued a formal statement citing the "extraordinary mixture of performing arts and theater disciplines, divergent backgrounds and interests" of the directorate. "This is unorthodox," Phillips said, "but because of that perhaps a potentially effective route to real achievements." Speaking more informally, Phillips admitted that he was not sure initially that this arrangement could work, but that he is now caught up by the idea and convinced that it can. "Fine theater can grow from collective response and not from just one guy coming up with his own view of the theater." But Phillips acknowledged that there are "a lot of people who would not touch the Beaumont or this kind of directorate with a bargepole." Among them is Joseph Papp of the New York Shakespeare Festival, the last director and tenant of the Beaumont building.

Papp cited the statement of Beaumont board chairman John S. Samuels 3d about how the directorate could develop the most important theater in the United States: "This announcement makes me damn mad," said Papp, "it is nothing more than woolly thinking. There has never been a ITHKATRt.CHARGt. 42b-8T feston -w Shakespeare Comoanv' XJSJkXiMXXlJ across IreOT Symphony Hal1 INFO: 473-6580 GROUPS: 492-6156 at The Boston Rep 1 Bcyiston Place. Boston Tonite at 8 "Spacescapes" creator Bill Sebastian, left, and David Archer, executive director of the Modern Theater, survey, the scene before tonight's opening, while associate Ron Alexender shows Ervin Alves where to hang lights.

Lower right, Rita Monestersky dusts off a relic from the theater's past. (Globe photos by Janet Knott) Opening night at the Modem Jhe Moitere's "WINGS' is an astonish ing experience. NtrlaaHv Aa JOSEPH PAPP "wooly thinking" theater run by a directorate. This proposal is unrealistic and will lead to a dead end. John Samuels 3d thinks the Beaumont can be opeated without a single baron.

"But if he thinks he's getting from the baron like Stanislavsky, Moliere or Yeats, all of whom ran their own theaters, what kind of baron is he putting in their stead? A business baron? No institution can run without a major focal force in it. And where is the money coming from? That's a question that hasn't been answered. If their selling point or rationale is that art is diverse, they have to realize that it can't happen, because at the center of art is unity." Sarah Caldwell refused to elaborate on statements in the Times that she would concentrate on classical plays, while Allen would probably work on projects of his own creation, Rabb would concentrate on new plays and Ciulei would recreate European classics. "The word classic has the advantage of meaning anything one wants it to mean; I could choose to do an American classic," said Caldwell. "I am looking forward to this the way I look forward to my appearances with symphony orchestras.

When I work in opera I do everything. With orchestras I am functioning as a musician without having to think about the theater; at the Beaumont I will be able to function in the theater 'without thinking about music." She continued from a phone booth at a New York airport, "That is why I have said that I do not want to do musicals at the Beaumont. Do I have any specific plays in mind? Am I saving musicals for Boston? All I can say is that three people are behind me waiting for the phone at La Guardia." CALL 267-5600 mm comwi Ml ft k- i Fra Has 1 111 ICtttk'tibv KM IN MADDKN TELE-TB0H CHARGE 426-8383 II ti Hi Group Sales 426-6444 252 Ttemonl Boston. Mass. 1617)423-4008 By Steve Morse Globe Staff The lobby was a disaster area.

There were crates, wires, cardboard boxes, paintbrushes, cans, coffee cups and even an old penny scale scattered about. "There's a lot of cleaning to do," moaned one worker. That was two days ago. Tonight at 8:30 should be a different story, as the doors of the Modern Theater swing open for the first of 12 consecutive evenings with the exotic music of Sun Ra and his Cosmo-Omniverse Arkes-: tra and dancers. The lobby won't be plush patched-up is a better term but no one is trying to win any architectural awards, not now at least.

The aim for the moment is to signal the comeback of a restored facility which sits next to Sarah Caldwell's Savoy Theater on Washington street and to emphasize that this will be a showcase for experimental and avant-garde forms of entertainment, from music to theater. "We're interested in developing local talent," says David Archer, executive director of the Modern Theater, "but we also want to present international performers and theater. Boston has never had the exposure to foreign groups that it deserves." Requests to use the 64-year-old facility, which was built by Charles Blackall (who built the Music Hall and among others) and acoustically supervised by Wallace Sabine (who did Symphony Hall), have been staggering. "There are an awful lot of people interested in performing space in Boston," adds Archer. "I've had letters from all over the world." Restoration of the 600-plus seat Modern which in its last incarnation was a porn moviehouse is expected to be a five-year project costing $1W million overall.

The work is still at its beginning stages funding sources are being actively sought and hopes are not just to restore the existing downstairs theater, but to add a new 250-seat developmental theater upstairs as well. It will showcase new experimental talent that may eventually be switched to a run on the main stage. Archer, whose career includes booking performances here and in New York for avant-garde artists (he booked i the "Spring Theater Festival Boston" two years ago which featured three European and two American acting companies), didn't expect to open the Modern until next April, when Edward Albee is slated to present eight of his shorter plays in "Edward Albee Directs Albee." 4 However, a local group, Celestial Productions, persuaded him to stage Sun Ra. Celestial has done $10,000 worth of restoration offer we couldn't refuse," says Archer) and is premiering a lighting machine by Bill Sebastian, who will spontaneously create abstract "spacescapes" to go with Sun Ra's music. The Sun Ra concerts, according to Sebastian, will be "people's concerts." He says that "electricians, plumbers and truckdrivers have been more interested in these shows than the arts community." He adds that there have been some heroic sacrifices in getting the theater ready for tonight's opening.

He and associate Ron Alexander have painted the ceiling. Duane Huntington has built a two-tier stage with inverted pyramid supports. Roger Hendrick has helped fix dilapidated seats. Other people, Sebastian says, have come in off the streets and worked long hours. Pointing to his light machine, which took him five years to build and he claims has 200-300 times the color intensity of television, Sebastian concludes: "I can't guarantee anybody is going to like what they see here, but I can guarantee they won't have seen anything like it before." nv nn Sills to take over City Opera in 79 pa ijuim Here are two "musically accurate" systems we've put together especially for this holiday season.

For $769, we've matched a pair of TANGENT TM-3 two way bookshelf speakers with, an ONKYO TX-2500 Mark II 40 watt, per channel receiver featuring servo-locked tuning and a DUAL CS-504 belt drive, semi-automatic turntable with base, dustcover and the new ANDANTE magnetic cartridge. It would be difficult to improve upon our $2199 system which represents a solid investment in sonic perfection. Highly acclaimed KEF 104AB loudspeakers powered by Mitsubishi's DAC-20 pre-amptuner and the Mitsubishi DAA-10DC 100 watt per channel power amplifier. For the record, a Technics professional SL-1400 r- BEVERLY SILLS "a whole new life" MKII auartz-locked, digital direct drive, semiautomatic turntable and i 1 the Fidelity Research TR1 MKII moving coil cartridge. olfbl MITSUBISHI' AUDIO SYSTEMS By Richard Dyer Globe Staff Beverly Sills, prima donna, is going to become Beverly Sills, general manager, sooner than expected, according to an announcement made in New York yesterday; Sills will become director of the New York City Opera July 1, replacing.

Julius Rudel who resigned yesterday. Rudel, who had originally been announced to share the directorship with Sills a year and a half from now, after her retirement from the stage, will remain with the company as principal conductor, with 22 scheduled appearances in the fall and spring seasons 1979-1980. Early reports had suggested that Rudel was forced to resign because of an unsatisfactory recent record at the City Opera and because of his increasing commitments outside the company, reports that were flatly denied by him at a press conference yesterday. 'The decision to resign was my own. The difficult, tedious and sometimes not so rewarding work got to me.

Now I want the chance to be just a musician," he said. Rudel assumes the music directorship of the Buffalo Symphony in 1979 and he is music adviser to the Philadelphia Opera; he also has extensive commitments to the Paris Opera and to the Vienna Festival. At the same press conference, Sills spoke of challenges and new opportunities. "I hope that the time has come for both of us," she said. "I think it's great to turn 50 and open up a whole new life." Sources close to both Sills and Rudel say that Rudel has wished to leave the administrative part of his job for some time, but felt that it would be dishonorable to leave last season when the company was in the midst of a serious financial crisis.

Rudel first proposed the idea of Sills entering administration after her singing career five years ago, after a rehearsal of "I a month ago he called her and Fidelity Research A krstmm i 1 1 iObm said, "I really wish I could get out after the end of this season because as a conductor I have to have Lebensraum, breathing space. Besides no one should stay in such a job more than 20 years, and I have been here 22." Sills now confronts the problem of what to do about her remaining engagements in 1979 and 1980 before her announced retirement as a singer. Already she has withdrawn from the opera Domenick Argento wrote for her, honorably stating that he had created a marvelous role that she could not do justice to. There has been a plan to bring her last world premiere, Menotti's "Juana la Loca" from San Diego to New York, but she has not yet decided whether it would be ethical to appear as a performer in her own theater. On the other hand these same sources say that Sills feels a moral obligation to honor her contracts, particularly in those instances where the announcement of her presence had sold an entire series or season.

"I have a feeling that three or four opera companies out there are having heart attacks right now," she said yesterday. There is the further question of just what the demands on her time will be at the City Opera next year, where she is inheriting a season already planned by others, with very little input from her. And while she says she is full of plans for the company that was her own artistic home, she declined to elaborate until she has had more time to consider them. I 4 1N JlWliWiWWWMWBwajil.