Daily News from New York, New York • 225

CO ir CO entertainment THIS WEEK IN Classical Music Dance till BY TERRY TEACKOUT si? 3r SQUEEZE PLAY: Kevin Isola (sitting), Don McManus and Amelia Campbell in "The Zig-Zag Woman" THEATER REVIEW SURPRISE, SURPRISE, as Gomer Pyle used to say: June Anderson is taking over the role of Rosa-linde in the Metropolitan Opera's production of Jo-hann Strauss' "Die Fledermaus" (replacing Nancy Gustafson, who is ill). Anderson, who charmed our socks off last month in "Daughter of the Regiment." has never sung the role before anywhere, and we bet she'll have fun with it. Two performances this week: Wednesday and Saturday at 8 (362-6000). And on Thursday at 6. it's the season's last "Meistersing-er," with Ben Heppner (wow!) as Walt her and James Levine conducting.

We also note with pleasure that Richard Westenburg and the Musica Sacra Chorus and Orchestra are giving two performances of Handel's "Messiah" this week at Carnegie Hall, Thursday and Friday at 8 (247-7800). This is a no-lose proposition Westenburg is one of the best choral conductors around. Musica Sacra one of the best choruses. Also at Carnegie Hall, Jaime Laredo and the New York String Orchestra give the first of two holiday concerts Sunday at 7. The program includes Mozart's "Eine kleine Nachtmu-sik" and Tchaikovsky's Serenade for Strings.

These concerts are one of New York's nicest holiday traditions, so if you haven't anywhere to go on Christmas Eve or even if you do stop by and listen. Also New York City Ballet dances "The Nutcracker" all week (New York State Theater, 870-5570). Curtain times: Tuesday-Thursday at 6, Friday and Saturday at 2 and 8 and Sunday at 1 and 5. Highlight: Maria Kowroskl, a young corps member for whom we have great hopes, dances Coffee for the first time at the Friday matinee. Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater continues its month-long run at City Center (581-1212).

Curtain times: Tuesday at 8, Wednesday at 2 and 8, Thursday and Friday at 8, Saturday at 2 and 8 and Sunday at 7:30 only. Highlight: Judith Jamison's "Riverside," which delighted us at its opening-night premiere, will be repeated at Sunday's performance, a benefit for Gay Men's Health Crisis. 0 A personal note: Nancy La-Mott, the best cabaret singer in the world, used to turn up in this space every once in a while, which amused her no end. since classical music, was not exactly her thing (though one of our happiest memories is of taking her to see Paul Taylor for the first time "Esplanade" left her literally speechless with joy). Still, she fit right in: Nancy, who died Wednesday, was to American popular song what Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau is to Schubert, and what Kyra Nichols is to George Balan-chine.

She was greatly loved, and is greatly missed. TJMy IQhere's Tiw Sung? Martin's 4 plays are full of tricks but there's no magic cian expatiating on wanting to give his women a freedom he can control, but you don't pay much attention because you're fascinated by how the title character levitates. The plays are performed spiritedly (a nice-touch in "WASP" is to have the sets changed by Boy Scouts), but by the end of the evening, you feel as if you've had four appetizers and are still waiting for the main course. maid who has to dust it. Another is about the unhappy love life of a woman who has herself bisected by a zigzag box, which seems to divide her body in three.

If I were more serious, I would express outrage about the misogyny implicit in both these plays. My only complaint, however, is that they weren't funnier. There's a lot of hooey in "Patter for the Floating Lady," which is about a magi MUSIC REVIEW Ot Issn' By HOWARD KISSEL Daily News Drama Critic WASP AND OTHER PLAYS. By Steve Martin. With Nesbitt Blaisdell, Amelia Campbell.

Kevin Isola. Carol Kane, Don McManus and Peggy Pope. Sets by Thomas Lynch. Costumes by Laura Cunningham. Directed by Barry Edelstein.

At the Joe Papp Public. Rfl ORE THAN 30 YEARS have passed since Jean i a Shepherd observed that the only ethnic group in America you could attack with impunity was White Anglo-Saxon Protestants. Those 30 years have seen plenty of attacks. In the title play of "WASP and Other Plays," Steve Martin joins the assault. He shows a WASP family, for example, listening dutifully to fatuous Daddy describe his golf game.

Daddy never listens when Mommy or his daughter speaks and he can't have a real talk with his son. Nevertheless, Martin also has a sympathy for WASPS most satiric sketches lack. Each of his characters hears inner voices that show an imagination, a sensitivity, and sometimes a wacko side behind the placid stereotype. The other three plays depend on magic tricks, and you come away wondering how they're done rather than what the plays themselves are supposed to be about If only there were a little more magic in the texts! The first, "Guillotine," is about a man who buys a guillotine for his living room, and the meticulously thorough BY TERRY TEACHOUT Nig cross between Copland and Barber, the worst ones "symphonic jazz" of the lamest kind. As for Kathleen Battle, her voice has lost much of its silvery, pointed focus, and her once-endearing style has hardened into a handful of coy mannerisms.

Nor did Previn do her any favors by incorporating jazz elements into his score. Battle is about as hip as Guy Lombardo, and she was at her stiffest whenever the rhythm section started walking. The concert opened with a stunning performance of Paul Hindemith's Symphonic Metamorphosis on Themes of Carl Maria von Weber in which Leonard Slat-kin turned the brass section loose and raised the roof of Avery Fisher Hall a good three feet Would that the evening had ended with this virtuoso flagwaver instead of "Honey and Rue." Sometimes the diva shouldn't get the final curtain. ri NDRE PREVIN'S "HONEY AND 111 Rue," an orchestral song cycle to pc-ruems by Toni Morrison, was composed especially for Kathleen Battle. Alas, the collaboration seems to have-brought out the worst in all three parties.

Morrison's texts are barely above the greeting-card level. Previn's music is the kind of thing you'd expect to hear under the closing credits of a made-for-TV movie. And Battle, who sang "Honey and Rue" with Leonard Slatkin and the New York Philharmonic last Thursday at Avery Fisher Hall, squirted a thick frosting of sugary charm all over the piece. In addition to being a first-rate conductor and a superlative jazz pianist, Previn is a part-time composer of considerable accomplishment. Yet he has produced in "Honey and Rue" a score notable only for its facelessness.

The best parts are a 1 Ah if a a 3 OFF NIGHT: Battle's voice lost its focus..