Music: Outdoor Season

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Across the U.S. last week, music lovers were pulling themselves away from their after-supper TV and their hi-fi sets. Into private cars and public buses they loaded blankets, cushions and bottles of anti-bug lotions, and rode off to the local stadiums and amphitheaters. At about twilight, they plumped by the thousands on damp grass, slatted benches or cold concrete, and spent the evening straining to catch the sounds of distant fiddling, blowing or singing. In short, the U.S. outdoor music season was under way.

As usual, some of the early-starters caught the worst of early June's uneven weather. Horrible example: in Washington's Carter Barron Amphitheater the youthful National Ballet Company of Canada, a fountain display called "Dancing Waters" and some unchoreographed water from the clouds joined forces. But the capital's outdoor musical types imperturbably risked the damp and cold, turned out an average 3,000 strong every night for the first week. The Carter Barron budget allows for one rained-out night for each of its 13 weeks.

Not every U.S. city can boast dancing girls or waters, but dozens have "graduated from the Sunday band-concert stage to more ambitious musicmaking. Cities with major symphony orchestras try to find pleasant outside work for the musicians during the summer months. Philadelphia seats them in Robin Hood Dell (June 21-July 28), Manhattan in Lewisohn Stadium (June 20-July 30), Boston on the Esplanade overlooking the Charles River (July 5-Aug 20), Chicago in suburban Ravinia Park, Los Angeles in spectacular Hollywood Bowl.

Around the countryside, other communities are finding special ways to make their own summer music attractive. Samples:

¶ Albuquerque wound up its 14th annual chamber-music festival last week in the 500-seat Little Theater. The concerts are donated by Banker-Rancher Albert Gallatin Simms, onetime Congressman, in memory of his wife, onetime Congresswoman Ruth Hanna McCormick. Each performance ends with Schumann's Piano Quintet, Op. 44 (it is Sponsor Simms's favorite). This year's guest star: top Violist William Primrose.

¶ Colorado's historic Central City Opera House will be the scene of Gilbert & Sullivan operas, performed by London's famed D'Oyly Carte Opera Co., July 2-30. Four bills—The Mikado, Yeoman of the Guard, Trial by Jury and H.M.S. Pinafore, and lolanthe—will run for a week each.

¶ Cincinnati's "Opera at the Zoo'' begins its 34th season this week with Puccini's Tosca, continues to give standard grand operas for the next five weeks. Most of the stars are from the Met and the New York City Opera.

¶ Fish Creek, Wis. is the home of the three-year-old Peninsula Festival, buried among the lakeside evergreens in Door County, 65 miles northeast of Green Bay. Conductor Thor Johnson (of the Cincinnati Symphony) gathers an orchestra of 40 standout musicians for two weeks (beginning Aug. 6). All nine concerts include unfamiliar or contemporary works, and usually play to full houses.