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tte.IRTS DIARY

A monthly selection of forthcoming events recommended by The Spectator's regular critics

OPERA

Caritas, Queen Elizabeth Hall (071 928 3(102), I, 2 July. Robert Saxton's new opera, based on a play about a mediaeval mystic by Arnold Wesker, was widely praised when it was premiered by Opera North last year. Diego Masson will conduct Patrick Mason's production, with Eirian Davies in the title role.

II Viaggiu a Reims, Covent Garden (071 24(1 12(X), from 4 July. Splendidly enjoyable Rossini opera. only recently resuscitated into performable shape. WNO's excellent new music director Carlo Rizzi conducts, John Cox directs, and the cast features four dazzling ladies: Montserrat CabaIle, Renee Renting, Sylvia McNair and Della Jones.

Glyndebourne. Very few seats left for the closing weeks before demolition (Queen of Spades, Death in Venice, fertufa), but always worth telephoning on the morning of a performance for returns ((1273 541111). There are still a few seats at £750 for the fabulous closing night gala on 24 July — stars, fireworks, champagne, tears all guaranteed. In aid of the rebuilding, a jolly good cause.

Rupert Christiansen

EXHIBITION S

Heat & Conduct: New Art from Tbilisi, Georgia. Arnollini. Bristol, from 4 July Eight living artists front state with fine visual tradition.

Wyndham Lewis: Art and War, Imperial War Museum, SE I. The prophet, critic and painter reassessed.

Light Pictures: Photography in Russia 1840-1940. Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, from 5 July. From Crimean War to Uncle Joe.

Gericaull to Bonnard: Prints from the Maxwell Webb Collection, Ashmolean, Oxford. Nineteenth- and 211th-century prints from stars of French firmament. Giles Auty

GARDENS

A charming and peaceful formal herb garden has been made in the walled garden behind the Geffrye Museum. It contains 170 different kinds of herb, together with roses, lilies and honeysuckle. and is divided into beds according to use — cosmetic, medicinal, culinary, household, aromatic and dye. It is open in the summer months in museum hours (Tuesday-Saturday, 10-5, Sundays and bank holidays 2-5. The museum is to be found in Kingsland Road, London E2.

Ursula Buchan

THEATRE

Grand Hotel, Dominion (071 413 1411), 6 July. Long-awaited British premiere of the Tommy Tune Broadway musical based im Vicki Baum's bestseller and the Garbo- Barryinore movie about Berlin guests in the late Twenties.

Someone Who'll Watch Over Me, Hampstead (071 722 9301), 7 July. New Frank McGuinness drama about English, Irish and American hostages in the Middle East.

A Midsummer Night's Dream. Olivier ((171 928 2252), 9 July. Performance-art director Robert Lepage makes National debut.

From a Jack to a King, Ambassadors (071 836 6111), 21 July. Pop-rock version of Macbeth from those wonderful folks who brought you The Tempest as Return to 11w Forbidden Planet.

Lady Be Good, Open Air Regent's Park (071 486 2431), 29 July. Gershwin golden oldie under the stars. Sheridan Morley

CRAFTS

The Designs of Rodney Kinsman. Design Museum. Twenty-six years of the firm OMK, a British design and manufacturing success story.

Green Wood, Royal Festival Hall Crafts Shop & Gallery, till 19 July. Brian Illsley, Anthony Bryant and Jim Partridge all have a deep understanding of living wood.

Burr oak green wood hoivk hr Anthony lirtunt Magdalene Odundo, Oxford Gallery, Oxford, from 6 July. Striking burnished pots — sculpture for the home. Tanya Harrod

CINEMA

Batman Returns, with Michael Keaton in a more becoming costume, Michelle Pfeiffer in a catsuit and Danny Dc Vito overacting as the Penguin in place of Jack Nicholson overacting as the Joker.

Ingmar Bergman has written The Best Intentions (12), which concerns the meeting and marrying of his parents. Henrik Bergman was a poor theology student, Anna a spoiled princess.

Never mind the accents, feel the quality. Tom Cruise travels Far and Away (12) as a poor Irish farmer who fights and gallops to the Oklahoma Land Rush, picking up his wife, Nicole Kidman, along the way. Mark Amory

DANCE

The Australian Ballet, London Coliseum (1)71 836 3161). 7- 18 July. Ehe season includes de Valois' Checkmate, Tudor's Gala Performance and Gielgud's production of Giselle.

Shubana Jeyasingh Dance Company. Purcell Room ((171 928 8800). from 29 July. Four-night run for Jeyasingh's New Cities Ancient Lands, a boldly experimental triple bill in which traditional Bharatha Natyam finds its Western sensibility in scores by Orlando Gough and Christos Hatzis.

Royal Ballet, Covent Garden (071 24(1 11166). Summer season debuts from Zoltan Solymosi as Solar in La liayadere (29 July), and Irek Mukhamedov as Romeo in MacMillan's Romeo and Juliet (21 July). Sophie Constanti

POP MUSIC

Simply Red, Wembley Stadium, 11, 12 July; Old Trafford, Manchester, 18 July. Albums don't just go silver or gold thse days, they go octuple platinum. Simply Red's Stars has sold nearly 2.4 million copies in the UK alone, for one simple reason: it's a very good record indeed.

Also recommended: Martin Stephenson and the Daintees, Town & Country Club, 16 July; Bruce Springsteen, Wembley Arena, 6-13 July: Erasure, I lammersmith Odeon. 11-29 July: I diking lIcads David 11)ritc. touting. 21 29 July. and, set course, the world's first self-made albino, Michael Jackson, Wembley Stadium, 3(1 July-1 August.

Marcus Berkmann MUSIC July is the busiest month 01 the summer for music festivals. The Cheltenham Festival (4-19 July) includes a celebration of Switzerland, with music by Frank Martin, Holliger and Arthur Honegger. Of British works there are premieres by Paul Patterson, John 'Fawner, Stephen Dodgson and Judith Weir, with performances of music by Michael Berkeley, Gerald Finzi, Elizabeth Maconchy, Robert Saxton and Vaughan Williams. Sir Michael Tippett is I r.tiv,d president for the third and 'nal year: all four of his concertos will he performed.

On 6 July the London Sinfonietta will hold a day in celebration of world music, with guest artists from Japan, Senegal and India (Barbican, starting at 6.30). The Big Event, as the whole project is called, won the 1991 Sainsbury's Award for Arts