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SCMP Reporter

THE Hong Kong Arts Festival has established a reputation for consistent excellence over the years and, despite principal grants having been frozen for the last two years, organisers have again prepared a programme rich in variety and attractions.

  This year, there will be 136 performances of 44 events, continuing the festival's annual expansion.

   Almost 1,000 people will be involved in the productions.

   Events will take place at 19 different locations from February 15 to March 13.

  As usual, internationally renowned virtuosos and young avant-garde companies, promising talents and revered stars, will be presented to local audiences.

 Mozart's enchanting The Magic Flute, featuring the popular Queen of the Night aria, will be co-produced by the festival and Spain's Oviedo Opera Festival and Teatro de la Zarzuela from Madrid.

   The first performance will also serve as a fund-raiser for future festivals.

   On the visual arts front, there will be a specially curated large-scale show that will bring together more than 200 of the best works since the 1970s from 40 photographers in China Hong Kong and Taiwan.

  From Spain, there will be paintings and sculpture, including works by Picasso and Miro, as well as younger artists. These will be on display at the Rotunda at Exchange Square.

  Dance lovers will be positively spoil.45 or choice.

   Belgian company Rosas, which has won countless awards including two ''Bessies'' - the dance equivalent of an Oscar - will present two dynamic works of modern dance.

  Mallika Sarabhai, the first Asian to win the Golden Star (also won by the late Rudolf Nureyev), will offer modern interpretations of classical Indian dance.

  Hong Kong-born Mui Cheuk-yin, voted Dancer of the Year by the local Artists' Guild last year, will stage her latest work, As Quick As Silver.

  Acclaimed for its performances of both classical and contemporary works, French company Ballet du Rhuin (known as the Strasbourg Ballet on its 1985 visit to the festival) will return with two mixed programmes of 20th century masterpieces.

  Japan's most famous company, Sankai Juku, will be showing off the unique butoh style, while Compania Bianca del Rey will perform its innovative brand of flamenco.

  Grace Lang, recently appointed programme director of the Arts Festival Society, takes particular pride in the theatre programme which has productions in English, Russian, Japanese, Mandarin and Cantonese.

    Included on the theatre programme will be a joint production between the Shanghai People's Art Theatre and America's Long Wharf Theatre: The Joy Luck Club, the story of four Chinese mothers and their first-generation Chinese-American daughters in America.

    The Shanghai company will also present The Woman Who Stayed Behind, an exploration of the emotions of the men and women left behind when their spouses go to work abroad.

  The Mansaku Company will contribute a Japanese version of Shakespeare in which Falstaff becomes a swaggering, bragging samurai in a kyogen play.

  Kyogen is the classical comedy of Japan - a counter-balance to the intensity of noh theatre and far more physical.

  London's Gate Theatre will present a re-discovered masterpiece, The Cheating Hearts by Pierre Marivaux.

   This production won an Olivier Award.

  Insomniac Productions' highly original piece, The Lift, is small in scale - each performance can be enjoyed by an audience of 70 only - but will offer impressive cinematographic effects.

  The Wooster Group from New York will offer Brace Up! , an experimental work based on Anton Chekov's Three Sisters. Chekov's The Seagull will also be seen in a faithful rendition by the Moscow Art Theatre.

  Chamber Made Opera's Recital will feature some of the world's best-loved operatic music and simultaneously satirises and celebrates ''high art''.

  Australian soprano Helen Noonan will play the ghost of a diva in this one-woman show.

  In Canadian company Les Deux Mondes' extraordinary play the curtain will never rise more than a few feet from the floor, which will give an unusual perspective to events on stage.

   The Promised Land is a journey through time, and the story of man's relationship with the earth which nourishes and supports him.

  As well as classical music, there will be music from leading composer Philip Glass, Sharon Isbin, the first guitarist to win the Munich International Competition, jazz guitar virtuoso Al di Meola, superstar jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, Irish pub band the Dubliners, and a Cantonese musical about Hong Kong in times of change, called The Kids, The Wind and The City.

  The Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra and the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra will also be part of the local contingent and deserving of a place with the international stars.

  The Exxon Divertimenti will feature the Victoria String Quartet, harpsichordist Bonnie Choi, and multi-media electro-acoustic music from John Chen.

  For family fun, there will be two shows not often seen in Hong Kong. The first will be Archaos, an anarchic, rock and roll, machine-age circus from France. The other will be farceur Brian Rix and his wife Elspeth Gray recalling the golden age of touring theatre in Britain.

      Slightly more traditional family fun will be provided by the Shanghai Puppet Theatre, the Hong Kong Repertory Theatre and the Chung Ying Theatre Company.



Varied choice of riches on offer