PLAINS PANE

With Professor James Stubbendieck, left, and Chancellor Harvey Perlman looking on, Gov. Mike Johanns, right, and DeWitt Harris, of the United States Postal Service, unveil the Great Plains Prairie stamp during the first day of issue ceremony April 19.

ETV Focuses on Willa Cather's Works, Life

Masterpiece Theatre's Song of the Lark May 2

Nebraska's literary landscape bursts into bloom this May with the premiere of The Song of the Lark on the Nebraska ETV Network and broadcasts of other programs highlighting the life and work of Nebraska literary icon Willa Cather on Nebraska ETV and the Nebraska Public Radio Network.

The Song of the Lark, a two-hour movie based on Cather's novel about a young woman who leaves her small home town to become an international opera star, premieres at 7 p.m. May 2 on Nebraska ETV as part of Masterpiece Theatre's American Collection. It repeats at 9 p.m. May 6 on Nebraska ETV and at 8 p.m. May 7 on NETV2.

Other programs that focus on Cather are:

· Love and Loneliness on the Plains, airing at 7:30 p.m. May 3 on Nebraska ETV.

· The Life of Willa Cather: Journey of an Artist at 3 p.m. May 6 on Nebraska Public Radio.

· Singing Cather's Song, airing at 11 p.m. May 6 on Nebraska ETV.

The Song of the Lark features Allison Elliott in the role of Thea Kronborg, a minister's daughter in the fictional community of Moonstone, Colo. (a thinly disguised representation of Cather's hometown of Red Cloud, Neb.) in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. When an unexpected boon allows her to go to Chicago and perfect her musical gift, she begins an extraordinary odyssey of self-discovery.

Although the character of Thea was modeled after opera diva Olive Fremstad, many elements of the story reflected events in Cather's life - like Thea, one of Cather's closest friends was her hometown doctor, whom she assisted on house calls; like Thea, the gabled attic of Cather's home had been converted into a "rose-papered bower" where she could hide from the world to read and dream; and, like Thea, Cather visited the desert Southwest and used the experience to find new inspiration for her art.

Masterpiece Theatre's American Collection's The Song of the Lark is presented in Nebraska with support from the Willa Cather Pioneer Memorial and Education Foundation in Red Cloud.

Love and Loneliness on the Plains, a production of UNL Television, presents dramatizations of two Cather works: a short story, The Sentimentality of William Taverner, and Winter Memories, an excerpt from the novel O! Pioneers. The program also includes a dramatization of another Nebraska author, Mari Sandoz - Mirage, a chapter from her book Old Jules. Actress Julie Harris narrates all three dramatizations.

The Life of Willa Cather: Journey of an Artist, a new documentary from NPRN, examines Cather's life from her childhood in Red Cloud to her years as an established author in New York City. The program includes dramatic readings from The Song of the Lark and other works, as well as an interview with Susan Rosowski, a Cather scholar at UNL.

The Life of Willa Cather: Journey of an Artist was produced by Ginger Miles with Jim Fritzler, theater director and musician based at Hastings College in Nebraska. Steve Robinson, former NPRN general manager, narrates. The production was supported in part by the Nebraska Humanities Council.

Singing Cather's Song, another UNL Television production, tells the story of Mildred Bennett, who created a living museum dedicated to Cather's life and literature. Ironically, Bennett's strict religious upbringing forbade her from reading any literature until she became a young woman. In Cather's novels and short stories, Bennett discovered a warm, humanistic view of the world that changed her life.

Singing Cather's Song was supported in part by the Cather Pioneer Memorial and Education Foundation in association with the Nebraska state Historical Society, Nebraska Arts Council and Nebraskans for Public Television.

Wharton's House of Mirth Screening at Ross

Director Terence Davies' flawless adaptation of Edith Wharton's great first novel of manners, The House of Mirth, featuring a stunning performance by Gillian Anderson, opens on April 26 at the Mary Riepma Ross Film Theater. The film is set among New York's haut monde at the turn of the century.

Social encounters, weekends at fashionable country houses, murmuring voices and satin gowns in dim parlors crowded with furniture and bric-a-brac - a sumptuous bell-jar world, too super-civilized for violence. But its Gilded Age mafiosi (Eric Stolz, Laura Linney, Dan Aykroyd, Anthony LaPaglia) practice a spiritual and socio-economic savagery so subtle it comes into awful focus only gradually ­­ like the slow spread of blood on lace.

As sacrificial lamb Lily Bart, Gillian Anderson (The X-Files) is a revelation; sliding inexorably from the grace money confers, she registers every nuance of Lily's spiritual refinement and social martyrdom.

The House of Mirth is showing April 26 through April 29 and May 3 through 6. Screenings are at 6:30 and 9 p.m. on Thursdays and Fridays; at 1, 3:30, 6:30 and 9 p.m. on Saturdays; and at 4, 6:30 and 9 p.m. on Sundays. Admission is $6.50 for adults and $4.50 for students, senior citizens, children, and members of the Friends of the Mary Riepma Ross Film Theater.

Rouault's Spiritualism Through Art Explored in Sheldon Exhibition

The Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery and Sculpture Garden presents Georges Rouault: The Intersection of Art and Faith, an exhibition of 15 prints from the permanent collection that offers an intimate view of one of the more spiritual artists of the 20th century, from May 2 to June 24.

Although it emerged in the 19th century in part as an explicit critique of the traditional authority and patronage of the Church, modern art reveals a strong commitment to the pursuit and exploration of spirituality and the nature of belief in a secularized world.

This commitment is not only evident in modern art in the 20th century, but also is present in the "postmodern" contemporary art world. In this arena, artists are increasingly engaging issues of religion and spirituality in their artistic work. Along with critics, historians also are becoming more sensitive to the presence of religion and spirituality in contemporary art. Furthermore, in the wake of occasional but routine flair-ups in the public arena about what constitutes the "proper" artistic representation or expression of religion and spirituality, Georges Rouault: The Intersection of Art and Faith seems particularly relevant.

Born in Paris in 1871, and reared in a Roman Catholic family, Rouault served as an apprentice in a stained-glass window workshop. He later attended the Ecole des Beaux Arts, where he studied with the Symbolist painter Gustave Moreau, who exerted a tremendous influence on his philosophy of art. In 1900 Rouault experienced a spiritual conversion. For the remainder of his artistic life, he was preoccupied with expressing the spiritual mysteries of the Christian faith through the aesthetic language of modern art.

In 1905 Rouault exhibited with Henri Matisse and Andre Derain in the infamous "Fauve" exhibition in Paris. A master printmaker who considered the print to be an important aesthetic medium, Rouault was given print exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1938. In 1945, was honored with a retrospective exhibition.

Despite his international recognition in the 1930s and 40s, Rouault's art seemed to trouble art critics and the general art audience on several levels. For many art critics, Rouault's explicitly Christian subject matter detracted from the aesthetic impact of his line and color. Others were disappointed by the "ugliness" and "earthiness" of his religious subjects, which appeared to bear little visual semblance to "the Good, the True, and the Beautiful" representations of religious subject matter in the work of more traditional artists.

Georges Rouault: The Intersection of Art and Faith presents several of the artist's most well-known and important subjects. From his representations of kings, convicts, clowns and nudes to his representations of Jesus, Rouault was obsessed with the aesthetic expression of humanity's frailty and God's grace.

NPRN to Feature Debussy's Music in May

As part of its "Composer of the Month" programming, the Nebraska Public Radio Network will explore the music of French composer Claude Debussy (1862-1918) in May.

Debussy's music opened new worlds similar to those explored in painting by impressionists such as Claude Monet and Pierre Auguste Renoir, and in literature by Stéphane Mallarmé and Maurice Maeterlinck.

The music Debussy created as a young man was of a typically Gallic grace, charm and elegance. As his style developed, however, he began to strive for colorful sounds at the softer end of the dynamic spectrum, employed whole-tone and pentatonic scales that do not attempt resolution, and broke standard rules of counterpoint by allowing all parts of the texture to drift in parallel motion. He had the vision necessary to paint pictures in sound rather than tell stories as had so much 19th-century music. His roots in Richard Wagner and the 19th century are obvious (no matter how vociferously he denied the Bayreuth master's influence), but his interest in texture and wisps of sound make him an essential predecessor of 20th-century music.

Debussy created a body of work including songs, piano music, chamber music, operas and orchestral music that contains some of the most haunting and evocative music ever written.

Artist Diversity Program Presents Tejano Conjunto

The Artist Diversity Residency Program will take to the road with El Conjunto Aztlan, an Austin, Texas, -based conjunto band, with performances Scottsbluff and Gering April 26-28.

"Conjunto" - Spanish for ensemble or group - refers to a specific Tejano musical group whose principal instruments are the button accordion and the 12-string bajo sexto. Conjunto Aztlan represents a spiritual and musical journey expressed through poetry and song with a goal to celebrate, defend and expand the musical cultural and spiritual legacy of the Chicano people.

Band leader Juan Tejeda has previously traveled to many Nebraska communities sharing his culture through UNL's Artist Diversity Residency Program. Unless otherwise noted, there is no admission charge for the performances, although members of the general public should telephone the middle and high schools hosting El Conjunto Aztlan performances during school hours to determine visitation policies.

April 27 - Noon, Western Nebraska Community College, Scottsbluff, contact Rachel Gonzales, (800) 348-4435.

April 28 - 8 p.m., dance at the Moose Lodge, 2540 10th St., Gering, (admission $5), contact Dora Groskopf, (308) 436-3121.

The tour is sponsored by UNL's Artist Diversity Residency Program in cooperation with Heartland Arts Fund Program, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Nebraska Arts Council.