111ARCH ARTS DIARY

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

OPERA

La Fanciulla del West, New Theatre, Cardiff (0222 394844), from 4 February. Puccini's still underrated cowboys (and one Indian) opera, with Suzanne Murphy as the bible-bashing barkeeper Minnie and Dennis O'Neill as the outlaw Dick Johnson (a role created for Caruso). WNO's new production is directed by Petrika lonesco and conducted by Julian Smith.

11 barbiere di Siviglia, Covent Garden (071 240 1200), from 13 March. This revival will be interesting for the debut of Jennifer Larmore (as Rosina), an exciting new American star, and the magnetic basso Barseg Tmanyan as Don Basilio. Carlo Rizzi conducts.

Salome, Coliseum (071 836 3161), from 14 March. Joachim Herz's intelligent staging is revived by the ENO with Kristine Ciesinski in the title role and Dmitri Kharitonov as John the Baptist, under Richard Armstrong's baton.

Rupert Christiansen

DANCE

Birmingham Royal Ballet, Covent Garden (071 240 1066), 18-28 March. Repertory includes Swan Lake, Theme and Variations and the company's London premieres of Balanchine's Symphony in Three Movements and Bintley's Brahms Handel Variations.

Adventures in Motion Pictures, The Place (071 387 0031), 26-30 March. A welcome London visit from this inventive and witty troupe now based in Bristol. Repertory includes a revival of their 1988 hit Spitfire and the London premiere of their new work Town and Country.

Deirdre McMahon

CINEMA

Awakenings (12) adds only a few operatic touches to Professor Oliver Sacks's affecting book about his work with chronic neurological patients. Shot in a real hospital, it has a bravura performance by Robert de Niro and an engaging one by Robin Williams.

Gerard Depardieu talks English in his first American film Green Card (12), directed by Australian Peter Weir. It is a reluctant love story about a marriage of convenience between an American girl who needs a husband to qualify for a flat , and a Frenchman who needs an American wife to qualify for a work and residence permit.

Barry Levinson's Avalon (U) is also about immigration — a whole family at the turn of the century this time. Joan Plowright is in the cast.

In a sense you could say that even The Godfather. Part III is about immigration. As you might expect, it is directed by Francis Coppola with Al Pacino as the Godfather, now in his sixties and aiming at deals with the Vatican. Diane Keaton is around. Gabriele Annan

CRAFTS

Furniture and Rugs, Contemporary Applied Arts, WC2, 15 March-20 April. We ought to buy modern furniture, oughtn't we? Look out for Neville Neal, continuing a tradition going back via Ernest Gimson to Philip Clissett, the country craftsman 'discovered' in the 1890s.

City Steel, Crafts Council Gallery, SW1, 6 March-28 April. More furniture but rather different Tom Dixon and other blithe spirits who do baroque things with metal.

Andre Dubreuil's 'Paris Chair" The Twilight of the Tsars, Hayward Gallery, South Bank, 7 March-19 May. Rich in the applied arts: examples of Russia's Arts and Crafts movement as well as her own racy version of art nouveau. Tanya Harrod

THEATRE

The Trial, Lyttelton (071 928 2033), 5 March. Adapted from Kafka's novel by Steven Berkoff. Antony Sher takes the lead part of Joseph K. Berkoff appears as Titorelli as well as directing and helping with the design.

Map of the Heart, Globe (071 437 3667), 7 March. New play by William Nicholson, directed by Peter Wood with a cast including Sinead Cusack, Susan Wooldridge and Patrick Malahide. A Sussex doctor leaves his wife for a (female) famine relief worker, goes to work in the Sudan and is kidnapped and held hostage.

Hamlet, Bristol Old Vic (0272 733535), 21 March. Ian Glen takes the lead. The consistently high standards maintained at this theatre recently suggest great promise for this revival. Paul Unwin directs.

Christopher Edwards

GARDENS

The Museum of Garden History, St Mary-at-Lambeth, Lambeth Palace Road, London SE1, re-opens after the winter on 3 March. The exhibition which runs there from 6 March till 5 April is entitled The Secret Gardens of Chatham Dockyard. Ursula Buchan

EXHIBITIONS

First & Last Impressions, Holburne Museum, Bath. Works by contemporary printmakers of all kinds living in West Country.

Sir Christopher Wren and the Making of St Paul's, Royal Academy, from 8 March. Sixty drawings and an 18-foot model help illustrate the building of Britain's first Protestant cathedral.

Margaret Mee's Amazon, Hunterian Art Gallery, Glasgow. Thirty large botanical watercolours show rare, endangered plants of rainforests.

Festival of '51, Kettle's Yard, Cambridge, from 16 March. Painting and sculpture from the Arts Council reminds us of the art

styles of 40 years ago. Giles hasty

POP MUSIC

Chris Isaak, Town & Country, 11-12 March. Now suddenly a star after his evocative hit 'Wicked Game', Isaak is apparently excellent live, and the T & C should suit his unashamedly retrograde rock 'n' roll style.

Eric Clapton, Royal Albert Hall, 3-9 March. Now approaching the end of this year's marathon run, Clapton dons his DJ for this final week and knocks out his greatest hits with full orchestral backing, a surprisingly exhilarating experience.

Marcus Berkman

MUSIC

The Barbican Centre/English Chamber Orchestra's Mozart series continues on the 2nd with the Serenade in D, played by Jose-Luis Garcia; on the 10th with the 'Paris' symphony conducted by Trevor Pinnock; on the 13th with the Sinfonia Concertante for violin and viola played by Yuri Bashmet and Viktor Liberman; on the 23rd with the unfinished opera Zaide; and on the 27th with the Gran partita for 13 wind instruments and the Oboe Quartet played by Neil Black. The series will resume in September.

The Brahms Experience, conducted by Roger Norrington, will co- ordinate concerts and talks about the composer's German Requiem at the South Bank on 8, 9 and 10