Mason at large

PATRICK Mason's production of Donizetti's Don Pasquale is being revived by the English National Opera for five nights at the Coliseum next month, and he will have to spirit himself off to London for a couple of days to rehearse it. This will oil his creative hinges for directing Puccini's Trittico, or trio of three short operas, which the ENO has commissioned him to direct next year. He had already committed himself to these little known operas before agreeing to continue as Artistic Director of the Abbey, and he has been granted two months' leave of absence to direct them.

Meanwhile Sue O'Dowd is leaving her job as Marketing Manager at the Abbey and is moving to Derry to market a new, improved Verbal Arts Centre. The centre, which promotes all the verbal and literary arts, has secured over a million pounds in British lottery funding and will spend £1.5 million moving into a new premises in what was Derry's oldest national school, right in the city walls. Seamus Heaney has agreed to launch the centre this time next year.

This is a further boon to Derry, which recently saw the launch of the £12 million Millennium Complex, which will finally give the city a decent auditorium.