Fantasia

Fantasia on Ice'Skates will be dancing across the ice this weekend, as the Columbia Figure Skating Club brings its spring ice show, "A Fantasia on Ice," to the Columbia Ice Rink.See more than 135 trained skaters, including more than 100 children, perform to the music of "The Lion King" and "Pocahontas." And enjoy the classic French children's story "Madeline" as it is brought to life on the ice through expressive skating and Parisian music.Performances will be on Saturday at 3:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. and on Sunday at 1:30 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. at the Columbia Ice Rink, 5876 Thunder Hill Road in Columbia.

IT WAS A sanguine tragedy of the utmost horror: infanticide, fratricide, kidnapping, abduction, beheading and burning at the stake.Plus, it had great music.So why was I suppressing an impulse to laugh during the Baltimore Opera Company's creditable performance of "Il Trovatore" last week?Because scenes from the Marx Brothers comedy "A Night at the Opera" kept flashing into my mind. An old film that spoofs grand opera, including Verdi's "Trovatore," in the unique style of those madcap comics.

He's been dead for 243 years, but Johann Sebastian Bach can still draw a crowd.Yesterday, hundreds of music lovers made their way to St. David's Church in Roland Park for all or part of the 17th annual Baltimore Bach Marathon -- 7 1/2 hours of nonstop Bach organ music played by 15 of the area's best church organists."

Remember the day Richard Wagner met Elmer Fudd?If you grew up watching cartoons -- and chances are, you did -- you know it came in a Bugs Bunny cartoon, "What's Opera, Doc?"For millions, the first brush with Wagner's "Die Walkuere" came not in the stentorian soprano of Birgit Nilsson, but in the glottal rasp of Elmer's fractured Valkyrie melody:"Kill da wabbit, kill da wabbit . . ."A similar collision occurred in "Fantasia," when Walt Disney set -- Tchaikovsky, Dukas and Ponchielli to animation of balletic hippos, hopping mushrooms and dancing brooms.

Q: My husband and I are interested in going through the Panama Canal, but not on a cruise. Is there any way we can do it?A: The short answer to this, one of the most-asked of all travel questions, is yes: Argo Tours of Panama conducts partial transits of the canal every other Saturday and full transits twice a year.The partial transits leave at 8 a.m. from Dock 17 in Balboa on the Pacific Ocean side of the canal.The ship sails though the Miraflores Locks and cruises Miraflores Lake up to Pedro Miguel Locks, but does not enter the locks.

Because I believe that children have a spiritual life that can be touched by the fine arts, I am attempting to introduce mine to what our mothers might have called culture.It is not going well.Because I believe that in the arts, children can find a way to express what they feel but cannot say, because I believe the arts can give them fun and joy and a way to calm the turmoil inside, I have not only paid for pottery classes and painting lessons and dance camp, but I also have bought tickets to ballets and symphonies.

Sales receipts for Walt Disney's videocassette release of "Fantasia" multiplied faster over the holidays than the horde of pail-toting brooms conjured up by the Sorcerer's Apprentice. Unavailable on videocassette until November, "Fantasia" has already sold 13 million units to distributors, forcing Disney at one point to stop taking orders because copies couldn't be made fast enough.The success of the Disney classic, however, raises questions for film lovers about other vintage movies that have never been released on videocassette:*"Annie Get Your Gun," the 1950 film version of the Irving Berlin Wild West musical with Betty Hutton and Howard Keel.

The Philadelphia Orchestra Association slapped the Walt Disney Co. with a lawsuit yesterday, claiming it deserves half the $120-million videocassette profit from the animated classic "Fantasia."The Philadelphia Orchestra's "musical performance, name and likeness were used throughout the movie," the suit said, and "no contract or agreement" gives Disney the right to use its performance without compensation.The civil lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia. Besides half of "Fantasia''s estimated profit, the suit seeks unspecified punitive damages.

The temptation is to go too far and proclaim "One False Move," which opens today at the Charles, a masterpiece, the best movie of the year, blah blah blah. Of course it isn't. But it's a hell of a movie.The picture almost slipped into oblivion, and much praise goes to Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, who championed the movie on their nationally syndicated television show, and pretty much invented its life ever since.This is exactly the sort of film Hollywood has forgotten how to make: the small-scale, extremely tense, character-driven thriller, so bitingly authentic that in its last few moments, when its antagonists come together, guns drawn, and you know that someone's going to die, it's heartbreaking.

LOS ANGELES -- Walt Disney's animation classic "Fantasia" will be updated with several new segments now being created for release in 1996-97, it was recently announced.The revamped version, to be called "Fantasia Continued," will fulfill Disney's original wish to keep the 1941 film fresh by periodically replacing some old segments with new ones, the studio said in a news release."We would . . . change the program just like the ballet does," Disney said when "Fantasia" was released.Details about the new segments and which old ones would be dropped were not released.

When Fantasia Barrino opens her mouth as Celie in the national tour of The Color Purple and belts out the lyrics to "I'm Here," she could be talking about her own life. Like Celie, the heroine of Alice Walker's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, the teen-age Fantasia contended with rape and domestic abuse. And, like Celie, she launched a successful career against all odds when she won the third season of American Idol. Two best-selling albums followed, along with a memoir called Life Is Not a Fairy Tale that later was made into a movie for cable television.

Jennifer Hudson cds Jennifer Hudson went from being booted off American Idol to winning an Academy Award in just four years. But while she was developing her acting career, it seemed as if her debut album would never come out. (In addition to her Oscar-snatching role in Dreamgirls, she also appeared in Sex i n the City: The Movie and has a role in the coming flick The Secret Life of Bees). Finally, the 27-year-old Chicagoan has released her much-talked-about self-titled CD. The disc, in stores today, goes out of its way to show off Hudson's musical diversity.

Looks, as everyone knows, can be deceiving. Consider Ralph Vaughan Williams - well-fed and rather rumpled in his favored thick, three-piece suits; hair usually a bit mussed. One wag thought that the eminent English composer suggested a farmer "on his way to judge the shorthorns at an agricultural fair." He was actually an urbane fellow, fond of partying in the big city. And his private life had the complicated stuff that, in different times, would have galvanized the tabloids (invalid wife, decades-long affair with a much younger woman he eventually married when he was 81, etc.)

Mario and Fantasia, two standout talents in the overly calculated realm of modern R&B, have placed big hits on the pop and urban charts and sold millions of albums. But neither has fulfilled the promise of his or her talent. There's still hope, though. Mario and Fantasia, the marquee names at Friday night's African American Heritage Festival at Camden Yards, are younger than 25. So with time (and, with any luck, better material), both should soar artistically. But for now, the two are churning out mostly trite urban-pop tunes and albums brimming with rudimentary, trend-conscious production.

Miss Northern Maryland crowned Keia Brown, 22, of Abingdon recently won the Miss Northern Maryland title from the Miss America organization. She competed against nine other contestants in interview, talent, swimsuit, evening gown and on-stage question categories. Brown performed a lyrical dance to Fantasia Barrino's I Believe for her talent portion. Her platform was "Enough Is Enough: Cyber Safe Our Youth." She is a senior at Marymount University in Arlington, Va., where she expects to graduate in May, with a degree in fashion merchandising.

Don't crown Lakisha Jones -- or rival Melinda Doolittle -- the new American Idol just yet. That's what Nigel Lythgoe, executive producer of the hit Fox series American Idol, told reporters yesterday during a telephone news conference. When asked if the talent show hasn't already become a two-person contest, Lythgoe said, "I've seen the three divas -- if you remember, they were LaToya London, Jennifer Hudson and Fantasia [from Season 3]. And I've seen them cancel each other out." So, he has become "wary" about early favorites, Lythgoe said.

There is a downside to winning American Idol. The victor can be profiled in a movie as dreadful as The Fantasia Barrino Story: Life Is Not a Fairy Tale. The film premieres at 9 tonight on Lifetime, and Barrino's story would seem perfect fare for a cable channel dedicated to empowering women. The Fantasia Barrino Story: Life Is Not a Fairy Tale airs at 9 tonight on Lifetime; it repeats at 8 p.m. tomorrow and 9 p.m. Monday.

Roland Edward Banks, a pianist and composer, died of Parkinson's disease Dec. 1 at Levindale Hebrew Geriatric Center and Hospital. He was 81 and lived in Baltimore. Mr. Banks was born in Baltimore and was raised in the city and also in Harford County. "He started playing the piano when he was 9 years old," said a daughter, Ronna S. Matthews of Ten Hills. During World War II, he served as a rifleman and in the Army Quartermaster Corps. After the war, he moved to New York City and studied music at the Institute of Musical Arts.

How high do you think Fantasia Barrino's "self-esteem" is now? Ms. Barrino - simply "Fantasia" to her cult of adoring fans - won the American Idol competition two years ago. Since then she has had several hit records and achieved superstar status. Alas, one of those songs was called "Baby Mama," Fantasia's paean to single mothers. That included those single mothers who are divorced or widowed. It includes those single mothers who are being good mommies and are involved with their children's education and crack the whip whenever the young 'uns get out of line.

That earthy, approachable, homegirl-up-the-block charm is just part of the reason millions gravitated to Fantasia Barrino when she was on American Idol last season. But her most magnetic draw was her vocal style: ripe with church-honed histrionics and appealingly rough around the edges. On the show, Fantasia (she goes by just her first name) tore through any song thrown at her --from Barry Manilow to the Gershwins -- with charged vitality. She rightfully strolled away the first-place winner and has since scored platinum with her debut, Free Yourself.