The living arts

Press, 21 December 1976, Page 24

The living arts

Six sonatas The husband-and-wife : team, Dobbs Franks and ; Ruth Pearl — music | director and leader of the j Canterbury Orchestra — ! will make some of their I rare appearances as a duo ; on the concert platform ; this week. In their conI certs sponsored by Radio I New Zealand, they will ; play Bach’s six Sonatas j for Violin and Piano. The i concerts, all at lun«ii-time i (1.10 p.m.) will be in the • State Trinity Centre, in Worcester Street. Rock role j A New Zealand singer, I Lee Grant, will play the j lead role in a rock opera I which opened in London ; yesterday. Grant, who comes from Palmerston

North and whose real name is Bogdan Kominowski, had been performing the title role in "Jesus Christ Superstar” for 18 months. He will take a month’s leave to appear in the new show. “Elidor,” as the King of Eiidor, an enchanted land which is rescued from darkness by four children. The opera is based on a book by Alan Gamer. It will run for three weeks. ego Rudolf Nureyev, the world’s best known living dancer, is a man full of contradictory qualities held together by an outsize ego, according to a pictorial biography just published in London. Entitled ‘‘The Nureyev

Image,” the photographic record has been compiled by a leading London dance critic, Alexander Bland. It contains more than 300 photographs, many of them previously unpublished, and a judicious analysis assessing the Russian-born star both as an individual and as an artist. It is 15 years since the former Kirov dancer made a dash to the West in Paris, then dazzled audiences there as probably no-one had done since Nijinsky. Now he is 38, and at the peak of his career. The story of his achievements as a tireless dancer and choreographer makes fascinating reading. The book contains some notable recollections of his outstanding partnership with Margot Fonteyn.

A m illion Twenty-two impressionist and modem paintings belonging to a New York collector, Nate Spingold were sold at Sotheby’s salerooms for more than S2M. The highest price was fetched by Renoir’s “La Promenade,” bought by a London collector for SI.IM. A Japanese collector, named as Mr Tamanaga, paid $ll,OOO for “La Belle Gabrielle,” by Maurice Utrillo. Other prices were $215,500 for Modigliani’s “La Fillette Blonde en Bleue,” $305,500 for Picasso’s “Les Courses a Longchamp” and $288,000 for Cezanne’s "Les Baigneurs au Repos.” —Derrick Rooney