

Enrique Jorda , conductor and musical director of the San Francisco Symphony , will fulfill two more guest conducting engagements in Europe before returning home to open the symphony's Golden Anniversary season , it was announced .


The guest assignments are scheduled for November 14 and 18 , with the Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana in Palermo and the Orchestra of Radio Cologne .
The season in San Francisco will open with a special Gala Concert on November 22 .


During his five-month visit abroad , Jorda recently conducted the Orchestre Philharmonique De Bordeau in France , and the Santa Cecilia Orchestra in Rome .


In announcing Jorda's return , the orchestra also announced that the sale of single tickets for the 50th anniversary season will start at the Sherman Clay box office on Wednesday .


Guest performers and conductors during the coming season will include many renowned artists who began their careers playing with the orchestra , including violinists Yehudi Menuhin , Isaac Stern , Ruggiero Ricci and David Abel ; ;
pianists Leon Fleisher , Ruth Slenczynka and Stephen Bishop and conductor Earl Bernard Murray .


The Leningrad Kirov Ballet , which opened a series of performances Friday night at the Opera House , is , I think , the finest `` classical '' ballet company I have ever seen , and the production of the Petipa-Tschaikowsky `` Sleeping Beauty '' with which it began the series is incomparably the finest I have ever had the pleasure of witnessing .


This work is no favorite of mine .
I am prepared to demonstrate at anytime that it represents the spirit of Imperial Russia in its most vulgar , infantile , and reactionary aspect ; ;
that its persistent use by ballet companies of the Soviet regime indicates that that old spirit is just as stultifying alive today as it ever was ; ;
that its presentation in this country is part of a capitalist plot to boobify the American people ; ;
that its choreography is undistinguished and its score a shapeless assemblage of self-plagiarisms .
All of this is true and all of it is totally meaningless in the face of the Kirov's utterly captivating presentation .



Precise
The reasons for this enchantment are numerous , but most of them end in `` ova '' , `` eva '' , or `` aya '' .
In other words , no merely male creature can resist that corps de ballet .
It seems to have been chosen exclusively from the winners of beauty contests -- Miss Omsk , Miss Pinsk , Miss Stalingr oops , skip it .


These qualities alone , however , would not account for their success , and it took me a while to discover the crowning virtue that completes this company's collective personality .
It is a kind of friendliness and frankness of address toward the audience which we have been led to believe was peculiar to the American ballet .
Oh-the-pain-of-it , that convention of Russian ballet whereby the girls convey the idea that they are all the daughters of impoverished Grand Dukes driven to the stage out of filial piety , is totally absent from the Kirov .
This is all the more remarkable because the Kirov is to ballet what Senator Goldwater is to American politics .
But , obviously , at least some things have changed for the better in Russia so far as the ballet is concerned .


Irina Kolpakova , the Princess Aurora of Friday's performance , would be a change for the better anywhere , at any time , no matter who had had the role before .
She is the most beautiful thing you ever laid eyes on , and her dancing has a feminine suavity , lightness , sparkle , and refinement which are simply incomparable .



Hit
Alla Sizova , who seems to have made a special hit in the East , was delightful as the lady Bluebird and her partner , Yuri Soloviev , was wonderfully virile , acrobatic , and poetic all at the same time , in a tradition not unlike that of Nijinsky .
Vladilen Semenov , a fine `` danseur noble '' ; ;
Konstantin Shatilov , a great character dancer ; ;
and Inna Zubkovskaya , an excellent Lilac Fairy , were other outstanding members of the cast , but every member of the cast was magnificent .


The production , designed by Simon Virsaladze , was completely traditional but traditional in the right way .
It was done with great taste , was big and spacious , sumptuous as the dreams of any peasant in its courtly costumes , but sumptuous in a muted , pastel-like style , with rich , quiet harmonies of color between the costumes themselves and between the costumes and the scenery .


Evegeni Dubovskoi conducted an exceptionally large orchestra , one containing excellent soloists -- the violin solos by the concertmaster , Guy Lumia , were especially fine -- but one in which the core of traveling players and the body of men added locally had not had time to achieve much unity .


Mail orders are now being received for the series of concerts to be given this season under the auspices of the San Francisco Chamber Music Society .


The season will open at the new Hall of Flowers in Golden Gate Park on November 20 at 8:30 p.m. with a concert by the Mills Chamber Players .


Sustaining members may sign up at $25 for the ten-concert season ; ;
annual members may attend for $16 .
Participating members may attend five of the concerts for $9 ( not all ten concerts as was erroneously announced earlier in The Chronicle ) .


Mail orders for the season and orders for single tickets at $2 , may be addressed to the society , 1044 Chestnut Street , San Francisco 9 .


San Francisco firemen busied themselves last week with their annual voluntary task of fixing up toys for distribution to needy children .


Fire Fighters Local 798 , which is sponsoring the toy program for the 12th straight year , issued a call for San Franciscans to turn in discarded toys , which will be repaired by off-duty firemen .


Toys will not be collected at firehouses this year .
They will be accepted at all branches of the Bay View Federal Savings and Loan Association , at a collection center in the center of the Stonestown mall , and at the Junior Museum , 16th Street and Roosevelt Way .


From the collection centers , toys will be taken to a warehouse at 198 Second street , where they will be repaired and made ready for distribution .


Any needy family living in San Francisco can obtain toys by writing to Christmas Toys , 676 Howard street , San Francisco 5 , and listing the parent's name and address and the age and sex of each child in the family between the ages of 1 and 12 .
Requests must be mailed in by December 5 .
Famed cellist Pablo Casals took his instrument to the East Room of the White House yesterday and charmed the staff with a two-hour rehearsal .
He was getting the feel of the room for a concert tomorrow night for Puerto Rico Governor Luis Munoz Marin .
President Kennedy's invitation to the Spanish-born master said , `` We feel your performance as one of the world's greatest artists would lend distinction to the entertainment of our guests '' .


For A good many seasons I've been looking at the naughty stuff on television , so the other night I thought I ought to see how immorality is doing on the other side of the fence in movies .
After all , this year's movies are next year's television shows .


So I went to see `` La Dolce Vita '' .


It has been billed as a towering monument to immorality .
All the sins of ancient Rome are said to be collected into this three-hour film .
If that's all the Romans did , it's a surprise to me that Rome fell .


After television , `` La Dolce Vita '' seems as harmless as a Gray Line tour of North Beach at night .
I cannot imagine a single scene that isn't done in a far naughtier manner on TV every week .


I believe TV watchers will be bored .


`` La Dolce Vita '' has none of the senseless brutality or sadism of the average TV Western .
Week in , week out , there is more sex to be seen in `` The Adventures Of Ozzie And Harriet '' .
There is more decadence on `` 77 Sunset Strip '' .
There are more obvious nymphomaniacs on any private-eye series .




In another respect , television viewers will feel right at home because most of the actors are unknowns .
With the exception of Lex Barker and Anita Ekberg , the credits are as unfamiliar as you'll find on the Robert Herridge Theater .


Most of the emphasis has been placed on a `` wild party '' at a seaside villa .
Producer Fellini should have looked at some of the old silent films where they really had parties ! !
The Dolce Vita get-together boasted a strip tease ( carried as far as a black slip ) ; ;
a lady drunk on her hands and knees who carries the hero around on her back while he throws pillow feathers in her face ; ;
a frigid beauty , and three silly fairies .


Put them all together and they spell out the only four-letter word I can think of : dull .


Apparently Fellini caught the crowd when its parties had begun to pall .
What a swinging group they must have been when they first started entertaining ! !




As A moral shocker it is a dud .
But this doesn't detract from its merit as an interesting , if not great , film .
The Chronicle's Paine Knickerbocker summed it up neatly :

`` This is a long picture and a controversial one , but basically it is a moral , enthralling and heartbreaking description of humans who have become unlinked from life as perhaps Rome has from her traditional political , cultural and religious glories '' .


And when they sell it to television in a couple of years , it can be shown without editing .




Tonight Atlantic Monthly editor Edward Weeks moderates a round table of four Russian writers in a discussion of Soviet literature .
Among the subjects discussed will be Russian restrictions on poets and writers in the USSR ( Channel 9 at 9:30 ) .
Person To Person ventilates the home lives of Johnny Mercer and Joan Collins -- both in Southern California ( Channel 5 at 10:30 ) KQED Summer Music Festival features a live concert by the Capello De Musica ( Channel 9 at 8:30 ) .


NBC plans a new series of three long programs exploring America's scientific plans titled `` Threshold '' , to start in the fall .
`` Science In Action '' , San Francisco's venerable television program , will be seen in Hong Kong this fall in four languages : Mandarin , Cantonese , Chiuchow and English , according to a tip from Dr. Robert C. Miller .
And you think you have language problems .


The week went along briskly enough .
I bought a new little foreign bomb .
It is a British bomb .
Very austere yet racy .


It is very chic to drive foreign cars .
With a foreign car you must wear a cap -- it has a leather band in the back .
You must also wear a car coat .


The wardrobe for a foreign bomb is a little expensive .
But we couldn't really get along without it .




`` Where do you put the lighter fluid , ha , ha '' ? ?
Asked the gas station man .
The present crop of small cars is enriching American humor .


Gas station people are very debonair about small cars .


When I drove a car with tail fins , I had plenty status at the wind-and-water oases .
My car gulped 20 gallons without even wiping its mouth .


This excellent foreign bomb takes only six .


When I had my big job with the double headlights and yards of chrome , the gas people were happy to see me .


`` Tires OK ? ?
Check the oil and water , sir ? ?
''

They polished the windshield .
They had a loving touch .




The man stuck the nozzle in the gas tank .
`` What kind of car is it '' ? ?
He asked gloomily .


`` It is a British Austin , the smallest they make '' .


`` Get much mileage '' ? ?


`` About 35 '' .


The gas station man sighed unhappily .


`` What I always say is what if somebody clobbers you in a little car like that ? ?
Crunch , that's all she wrote '' .


`` I will die rich '' .


`` That will be $1.80 '' , said the gas station man .
`` The windshield looks pretty clean '' .




Ah , the fair-weather friends of yesteryear ! !
When I wheeled about , finned fore and aft , I was the darling of the doormen .
Dollar bills skidded off my hands and they tipped their caps politely .


With a small bomb , I tuck it between Cadillacs .
( The last doorman that saw me do that should calm himself .
High blood pressure can get the best of any of us .
)
