Daily News from New York, New York • 214

if ti iw eat 1.3 i y-r JS'ioVTa II Ross adds and sells Diana Ross is in danger of being "Swept Away" (title of her LP) on a tide of adulation. She opens tonight at 8 at Radio City Music Hall (757-3100) for 11 shows through Tuesday. All are sold out. Ticket bartering should be an active business, vying with the pretzel and T-shirt vendors. Gassman on stage "Viva Vittorior starring Vittor-io Gassman opens a two-week engagement at 7 tonight at the Promenade Theater (Broadway and 76th 580-1313).

The show, conceived and directed by Gassman, is on an international tour. He performs episodes from works by Kafka, Pirandello and Shakespeare among others, interspersed with reminiscences and anecdotes. Free 'Fledermaus' The New York Opera Cooperative will give a free performance of "Die Fledermaus in English at 7:30 tonight in Lincoln Center's Darrtfosch Park. This is a fufly staged production. The rain date is 7:30 p.m.

Sunday. Power struggle The American Jewish Theater opens its new season with the world premiere of Ernest Joselovitz' "Jesse's Land at 8 tonight at the 92d Street 7395 Lexington 427-4410). The set in the Connecticut River valley country in 1941, is about the struggle for land between a wealthy immigrant and his tough, ambitious daughter-in-law. Unhappy returns "A Bite Out of Johnny," a musical comedy by John Wager and Warren Bross based on the life of Johnny Ap-pleseed, opens at 8 tonight at the Nameless Theater (125 W2d 316-6488 or 866-4692). Tickets are $7.50 but anyone who doesn't like the show is promised a full refund, "ft always been very disheartening to me when I go to a play or a movie and leave feeling gypped," explained director Ed Betlow.

"I think audiences go to a show wanting to enjoy themselves (maybe with the exception of some I i. -4 "1 Tom Hulc and Elizabeth Beriidge are Mr. and Mrs. Mozart in deadening effect on a movie for the audience feels re-, moved from the action. Shaffer, who has made a concerted effort to revamp his play for the screen, calls the movie "a fantasia on themes from Mozart's life" ancU in lusty, staccato scenes, he and Forman create a volatile, impressionistic view of 18th century Vienna that is fascinating for a time.

In a comical scene, the youthful Mozart nuzzles his future child-bride Constanze while sprawled on the floor of a formal banquet room, proving, with his naughty word games, that he is one palace pet who has not been properly housebroken. And Forman succeeds brilliantly in capturing the booze-guzzling, rowdy atmosphere of the Volkstheater (People's Theater). But one inevitably grows tired of listening to the hostile ranting of Salieri He remains the dominating character in the movie while Mozart is such a one-note character, a raving juvenile delinquent, that it's difficult to care what happens to him. F. Murray Abraham gives a most compelling performance as Salieri, adding more punch to his vitriolic lines with his witty, sarcastic delivery.

Tom Hulce darts around like a mischievous elf as Mozart, punctuating his sentences with a wicked high-pitched giggle but, through no fault of his own, the character does not quite come to life. Elizabeth Ber-ridge seems to be a little out of her depth as Constanze. Jeffrey Jones is exceptionally amusing as the dull, but anxious-to-please emperor. Unfortunately, Forman's depiction of Mozart as the victim of a pushy stage father is absurdly heavy-handed. At one point, the music turns loud and menacing as he cuts directly from a closeup of a portrait of Mozart's stern, disapproving father to a shot of Don Pedro's towering statue, making its thundering entrance in "Don Giovanni." But the music is movie's saving grace.

The movie may be shrill and overbearing but, as a celebration of some of the most glorious music ever written, it contains moments of pure rapture. Even in abbreviated form, Mozart's music sends the heart soaring, stirring the emotions in a way that no ordinary movie could possibly match. who, as the emperor's court composer, wrote lumbering operatic spectacles, but longed to achieve immortality with his music. On the other hand, Salieri was quick to recognize Mozart's unique gift His ability to scribble entire compositions as if they were being dictated, to him ultimately convinced the court composer that God had somehow chosen this foul-mouthed imp as his instrument It was all too much for Salieri, who became an increasingly bitter, vindictive man. There were even rumors that he was directly responsible for Mozart's death.

Milos Forman's "Amadeus," which was inspired by Peter Shaffer's original stage play, opens with a burst of energy as Salieri, having attempted to Rill himself, is dragged through the snow-covered streets of Vienna to a hellhole of a public hospital. A "Amadeua9 F. Murray Abraham priest comes to his room to urge him to confess his sins, but Salieri scoffs at the priest's assurance that all men are created equal. Mozart, as Salieri defiantly recalls, was no equal and he, proceeds to tell, by way of a series of flashbacks, about his dreaded rival. As a cinematic device, flashbacks tend to have a place gross of $3.2 million that boosted its 15-week total to $196.9 million.

The rest of the pack was well back, with "Purple Rain" closest at $2.5 million, followed by "The Karate Kid, "The Woman in Red, and Revenge of the Nerds; By KATHLEEN CARROLL AMADEUS. With F. Murray Abraham, Tom Mulce. Directed by Milos Forman. At Loews Paramount and Tower East.

Running time: 2 tours, 36 minutes. Rated PG. He was making concert tours by the age of 6, performing like a trained seal for the amusement of kings and bishops. Soon the pint-sized 18th century composer was creating music of such dazzling originality that his official patron, the tone-deaf Emperor Joseph II, could only mutter that he thought there were too many notes in the opera, "The Marriage of Figaro." But, in his lifetime, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart mainly succeeded in establishing a dubious reputation as a perpetual enfant terrible. His body was "eventually dumped in a pauper's grave.

And no one was more pleased by his untimely death than Antonio Salieri Yicjhtrope HOLLYWOOD Weekend moviegoers favored "Tightrope" and the rest of the previous week's top six films in identical order, but allowed "Red Dawn'' to drop out of the seventh spot to' catch the debut of "Ninja III: The Domination." "Tight critics)." Dream dancing Fantasy is the theme of the dance program by Spirit Walk at 8 tonight and Friday and 2 p.m. Sunday at the Riverside Dance Festival (20fri St. and Riverside Drive: 864-2929). Choreographers Maureen Williams and Chris Odo present pieces like "Faerie based on the character of Puck in "A Midsummer Night's Dream." Music is by collaborator Genji Ko. Traveling man Tom Galfacher's-Mr.

Joyce Is Leaving Pans, with Neil Vioond as a voung and then a middle-aged James Joyce, begins previews at 8 tonight at the Harold Cturman Theater t412 W. 42d 594-2370). Rory Sullivan plays the im portant role- of Stannic, Joyce's brother and adversary in ideas. Ernest Leogrande V) stiroftches fop ranking to 2d.veeBc CO "Red Dawn" fell out of the top seven in its sixth week of release as the $1.7 million grossed by "Ninja III" put Cannon Films back in the rankings after the early fade-out of its initial release, rBolero." f- rope," the Clint Eastwood detective story distributed by Warner grossed $3.3 million to stay in first place" in its fifth week. Columbia's relentless summer, spook spoof, dogged Eastwood's heels with a second-.