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FIDDLER ON THE ROOF is a nostalgic folk-musical version of Aleichem's tales of life in Czarist Russia and the gentle dairyman, Tevye, brought to life by Zero Mostel's larger-than-life interpretation.
Off Broadway
THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY. This engaging musical is lightly based on the days and dreams of the James Thurber character. Scenes from his several worlds are played with bounce and humor.
CAMBRIDGE CIRCUS. With a chuckle rather than a sneer, a band of young Englishmen keep their eyes on the oddball and carry a big slapstick in this howlarious revue.
RECORDS
Opera
MARIA CALLAS SINGS VERDI ARIAS (Angel). It has been a year since Callas' last recording, and her partisans have been braced for trouble. The news is good. True, a few bold dashes above the treble staff end in wobbles, but even her wobbles are welcome because in each aria from Don Carlo, Otello, and Aroldo, an emotion is magically distilled into song.
MARIA CALLAS: ARIAS BY BEETHOVEN, MOZART AND WEBER (Angel). The earlier music makes more demands on Callas than does Verdi and provides fewer rewards.
HANDEL: RODELINDA (3 LPs; Westminster). It was in 1725, when opera was young, that Rodelinda was first a hit in the Haymarket. Six characters, accompanied by a small orchestra or a harpsichord, sing a succession of recitatives and formal arias to one another; but so expressive is the music that it could survive without words. Contralto Maureen Forrester brings warmth to the stately beauty of the score as Bertarido, the King of the Lombards, a role originally sung by a castrato. But most compelling is the pure control of Soprano Teresa Stich-Randall as Rodelinda. Like Sutherland, she can sing and trill with the clarity of a flute.
BEETHOVEN: FIDELIO (2 LPs; London). Birgit Nilsson's voice nobly recreates Beethoven's larger-than-life, idealized portrait of a wife, his only operatic heroine. As Florestan, Indiana-born Tenor James Mc-Cracken matches Nilsson in strength and tonal beauty. Lorin Maazel, 34, gives dramatic backing to the stars but seems to be afraid of sentiment himself, and conducts the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and the chorus rather briskly. To hear the score let out in full glory, one must turn to
Otto Klemperer's 1962 version, on Angel. BIRGIT NILSSON SINGS GERMAN OPERA (London). Sumptuous singing. After excerpts from Die Walkiire, Tannhauser, Lohengrin, Der Freischiitz and Fidelio, Nilsson has power to spare, calling the ocean to account in the mighty aria from Weber's Oberon.
CINEMA
SEND ME NO FLOWERS. Married at last, Doris Day and Rock Hudson fluff up their pillow talk for a sprightly spoof about an exurban hypochondriac who thinks his wife's widowhood is at hand. As chief mourner, Tony Randall gets most of the laughs.
THE PUMPKIN EATER. Anne Bancroft portrays with dazzling perception a well-kept British matron who endures three husbands, a swarm of children, and a nervous collapse before she realizes that all's not well in her pumpkin shell.
SE'ANCE ON A WET AFTERNOON. Guided by voices from Beyond, a demented medium (Kim Stanley) and her timorous mate (Richard Attenborough) plot a kidnaping in this throat-drying English thriller that casts a spell nearly all the way.