NAEB Newsletter (Sept-Oct 1952)

- 2b - FORD FOUNDATION SERIES TO FEATURE.OPERA . v Opera produced, especially for television by the Metropolitan Opera Company will be presented at least twice during the forthcoming season of the Ford Foundation's "Omnibus” which will be carried on the nationwide CBS television network beginning Sunday, November 9« .Robert Saudek, director of the Foundation's TV-Radio Workshop which will produce the 90-minute Omnibus series, lias announced that Rudolph Bing of the Metropolitan Opera will personally work with the Workshop group toward the development of new tech¬ niques of stagecraft and of direction for televised opera. The opera will be presented in English, and will feature the Met's foremost artists and conductors. The choice of operas will be announced later. For the TV presenta¬ tions, Omnibus will depart from its diversified format in order to devote an entire program to.each opera. Omnibus, with a $2,000,000 fund set aside for this most lavish of all TV program ventures, has been scheduled by CBS for the b:30 to 6 p.m. EST time period on Sunday afternoons. The program is being offered for the multiple sponsorship of five national advertisers. Many of the program features will be in the nature of "show-casting’ programs that may eventually find their own places in network schedules, Saudek declares. He added that wide latitude will be given to creators of individual features to insure a high performance level. Alistair Cooke, Peabody Award-winning commentator, will be master of ceremonies for the series. Included in the Omnibus plans are original plays by Maxwell Anderson, French ballet features already in production in Paris, a music series by Leopold Stokowski, a series of plays by poet-critic James Agee, and specially edited films by the New York Zoological Society and the American Museum of Natural History, Saudek says the series will present, within its 90-minute format, five distinct features of unequal length in each broadcast. These will be both live and filmed. "A variety of features is now being produced," Saudek declared, "ranging from fact and fiction to modern living, and treated to popularize matters of vital interest and lasting value. Associated with individual features are Richard de Rochemont, former^ March of Time producer, and Jean Benoit-Levy,. producer of the French film "Ballerina" and "La Maternelle." The permanent staff of Omnibus includes John Coburn Turner, assistant director of the Workshop, Franklin Heller, executive associate, who is on leave of absence from CBS to join the Foundation, and William Spier. Omnibus will be the third series produced by the Workshop since its inception in 1951. Omnibus will continue for 26 weeks during its initial season. COLUMBIA SEMINAR SERIES PRESENTS SOCIAL PROBLEMS ABC has spotted its new "Seminar" program, presented by the Columbia University School of General Studies, at 7 p.m. Saturday evenings. The half-hour program made its debut October b. The TV series airs an actual seminar in American civilization, based on a regular course studying the major contributing factors of civilization in the United States. Television viewers can obtain a syllabus of the course from the University, and will be permitted to take a final examination if they choose to do so. Viewers taking the examination will be graded, free of charge, but will not receive academic credit for the course. Donald N. Bigelow, assistant professor of history at Columbia is conducting the programs, which are produced at ABC's 58th St. Theater under supervision of John W. Pacey,' the web's director of public affairs.