Conductor Rafael Kubelik made a triumphant return to his native Czechoslovakia after a 42-year absence to open the 45th annual Prague Spring music festival in emotional style.

Kubelik, recalled time and again to the rostrum, received a 10-minute standing ovation after conducting Bedrich Smetana's "Ma Vlast" ("My Homeland") at the gala opening concert of the three-week festival May 12.Kubelik helped found the Prague Spring festival in 1946 when he was chief conductor of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, but two years later he left Czechoslovakia after the Communist takeover. In the past decade, the festival has suffered a serious decline, attracting few top international performers. But this year a string of stars is due to perform at the dozens of concerts, including conductor Leonard Bernstein. Emphasis will be on Czech music, with Bohuslav Martinu receiving special attention.

-RUSSIAN CELLIST Mstislav Rostropovich stormed out of a Rome concert hall because he was angry at being televised without advance warning. He left during intermission of a concert at the Santa Cecilia Academy, leaving behind his priceless Stradivarius cello and walking back to his hotel in pouring rain. He later apologized to the audience for his abrupt departure.

-THE KENNEDY CENTER in Washington, D.C., has announced a project funded by a $450,000 Challenge III grant from the NEA, by which it will premier works by six American choreographers - one for each of the American ballet companies that will have a regular season at Kennedy Center. These are Ballet West, Boston Ballet, Houston Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet and San Francisco Ballet.

Sheldon Schwartz, administrator of artistic programs at Kennedy Center, envisions the project as a means of creating new repertory and encouraging American artists. All artists involved in the productions in any way must be Americans.

View Comments

-DEATHS IN THE ARTS: Singing actress and arts patron Norma Terris, 87, died in Lyme, Conn. She created the role of Magnolia in "Show Boat" and sang regularly with the St. Louis Opera in the '30s. For 30 years she was a member of the board of Goodspeed Opera House in Haddam, Conn. . . . Blanche Witherspoon died in Sherman Oaks, Calif. The widow of bass Herbert Witherspoon, she was a co-founder of the Metropolitan Opera Guild with Mrs. August Belmont in 1935, then director from 1945-54. . . . Dame Peggy van Praagh, founding artistic director of the Australian Ballet, died in Melbourne recently of Alzheimer's disease, at 79. She had danced with Ballet Rambert, London Ballet, and Sadler's Wells Ballet before going to Australia in 1962. From 1965-1974 she shared the post with Sir Robert Helpmann. . . . William Levi Dawson, 90, composer and former Tuskegee University (Ala.) music director who led the choir to international fame, died of pneumonia at Humana Hospital in Montgomery, Ala. Dawson was also famed for arranging Negro spirituals. . . . Luigi Nono, a leading avant-garde composer, died at his home in Venice after a long illness, at 66. . . . Philanthropist Grace Ford Salvatori, wife of millionaire industrialist Henry Salvatori and a leading fund-raiser for the Los Angeles Music Center, has died in Bel Air, Calif., at 80.

-ALTHOUGH AMERICAN AUDIENCES have seen dance from the four corners of the world, from the aboriginal culture of Australia to the tribal dances of Zaire, they're generally ignorant of American Indian dance. The American Indian Dance Theater is out to change that. Since it was founded in 1987, this troupe of 20 singers and dancers has toured the United States several times, besides traveling to France and the Near East.

The theater aims to preserve the traditional forms of its culture while making them stageworthy. Its director, the playwright Hanay Geiogamah, has taken dances that are usually performed outdoors, refocused them for a proscenium stage and shortened them for mass consumption.

All the dancers and singers but one (from North Carolina) come from the Southwest and the Northern Plains. In the opinion of Barbara Schwei, who founded the company, the best dancers come from the West, simply because they dance more.

Join the Conversation
Looking for comments?
Find comments in their new home! Click the buttons at the top or within the article to view them — or use the button below for quick access.