TELEVISION

Wednesday, April 24

KRAFT MUSIC HALL (NBC, 9-10 p.m.).* Eddy Arnold hosts the first of six variety shows entitled Country Fair. His guests this week: Al Hirt, Joanie Sommers and John Byner.

Friday, April 26

CBS FRIDAY NIGHT MOVIES (CBS, 9-11 p.m.). Sidney Poitier and Tony Curtis as two refugees from a chain gang in Stanley Kramer's The Defiant Ones (1958)

BELL TELEPHONE HOUR (NBC, 10-11 p.m.). "Jazz: The Intimate Art" focuses on the trumpets of Louis Armstrong and Dizzy Gillespie, the flute of Charles Lloyd and the piano of Dave Brubeck.

Saturday, April 27

NORTH AMERICAN SOCCER LEAGUE (CBS, 3-5 p.m.). The St. Louis Stars v. the Kansas City Spurs, at Kansas City, Mo., in the first of the season's professional soccer telecasts.

ABC'S WIDE WORLD OF SPORTS (ABC, 5-6:30 p.m.). The North American Gymnastic Championships, from Vancouver, B.C.; the Trenton "150" Auto Race, from Trenton, N.J.; and a background look at the Jimmy Ellis-Jerry Quarry Heavyweight Championship fight, to be telecast live on ABC from 9:30 to 11 p.m.

Sunday, April 28

NBC EXPERIMENT IN TELEVISION (NBC, 4:30-5:30 p.m.). Artist and Jazz Saxophonist Larry Rivers and Oscar-winning Film Maker Pierre Gaisseau in "Africa and I"--a record of their journey through Africa last fall and winter.

ABC SUNDAY NIGHT MOVIE (ABC, 9-11:30 p.m.). George Segal is the chief rodent in King Rat (1965).

H. ANDREW WILLIAMS' KALEIDOSCOPE COMPANY (NBC, 10-11 p.m.). Andy Williams takes a musical trip by blending psychedelic lights and today's sound with the help of Guest Stars Ray Charles, The Raelets, Burt Bacharach, Simon and Garfunkel, and Mama Cass Elliott.

Tuesday, April 30

CBS NEWS SPECIAL: THE TRIAL LAWYER (CBS, 10-11 p.m.). Four of America's most successful attorneys for the defense--. Lee Bailey, Edward Bennett Williams, Melvin Belli and Percy Foreman--discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the trial-by-jury system.

Check local listings for dates and times of these NET programs:

NET JOURNAL (shown on Mondays). "Still a Brother: Inside the Negro Middle Class" is a documentary about the Negro and his two-way odyssey--into the white middle class and back to his own people.

MEN WHO TEACH. Abraham Kaplan, professor of philosophy at the University of Michigan, illustrates how he works "to shape a man's temper of mind" rather than merely impart "textbook facts "

NET FESTIVAL. "Chopin: A Question of Stature" examines the romantic legends surrounding Chopin's life and music. Hungarian Pianist Tamas Vasary plays excerpts from the master's works.

IN FASHION. The many facets of American fashion--from the mass-production workrooms of Seventh Avenue to the haute couture designs of Norman Norell and Donald Brooks.

THEATER

On Broadway

THE EDUCATION OF H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N. If nostalgia is defined as that which tells the past the way it really wasn't, then this musical version of Leo Rosten's story of an endearing and spunky immigrant tailor is nostalgic. Tom Bosley and Barbara Minkus are performers who make more lyrical music together than the score does.

JOE EGG. British Playwright Peter Nichols pits humor and tenderness against pathos and despair in a drama about a man (Donal Donnelly) and woman (Zena Walker) whose only child is a spastic.

THE APA repertory includes Pantagleize, a Belgian farce that wrestles with commitment in life; Exit the King, an existential drama that confronts the inexorability of death; The Cherry Orchard, a Chekhovian masterpiece on the relentlessness of change; and The Show-Off, an American comedy about some maddening aspects of an all too recognizable type.

PORTRAIT OF A QUEEN. Victoria stands out like a jewel in the long line of English crowns, and these successfully dramatized excerpts from journals and documents exhibit the many facets of a complex woman and revered ruler. Dorothy Tutin and Dennis King bring historical figures to stirring stage life.

PLAZA SUITE. Neil Simon makes a triple bid to provide amusement and, ably assisted by Director Mike Nichols and Actors Maureen Stapleton and George C. Scott, comes up with a grand slam.

Off Broadway

THREE PLAYS, by Ed Bullins, offer three vistas of black America.

JACQUES BREL IS ALIVE AND WELL AND LIVING IN PARIS, an evening of songs, avoids sentimentality and yet moves deeply.

YOUR OWN THING combines rock music with an Elizabethan vehicle, Twelfth Night, to celebrate the modern spirit.

THE INDIAN WANTS THE BRONX takes a chilling look at urban violence.

IN CIRCLES sets Gertrude Stein's 360DEG play to round music by Al Carmines.

RECORDS

Opera & Operetta

VERDI: ERNANI (RCA Victor; 3 LPs). Somehow salutes are smarter, teardrops are wetter and the human voice is sexier in an early Verdi opera, for the young Giuseppe had an impetuous energy rarely encountered in a composer. Ernani is a singers' battlefield, full of vocal booby traps for even the most courageous and talented artists. Fortunately, the members of this album's cast are well-armored with magnificent voices, and their mighty ensembles turn into a veritable barrage of handsome sounds. Leontyne Price as Elvira is the florid-voiced object of the honorable love and disreputable lust of three blue-blooded men, including the

King of Spain. It all leads to a typically bewildering Verdian plot, as Carlo Bergonzi, Ezio Flagello and Mario Sereni drive Leontyne to ethereal distraction under the peppy command of Conductor Thomas Schippers.

GLUCK: ORFEO ED EURIDICE (Deutsche-Grammophon, 2 LPs; Angel, 2 LPs). Enveloped in a dreamlike mist of hypnotic melodies, Gluck's opera is nearly as mysterious and appealing as the ancient myth it retells. Contributing to its unreal aura is the fact that the role of Orfeo was written for a castrato voice, which to 18th century ears sounded godlike in its sexless purity and power. The current scarcity of castrati has failed to kill this superb opera, and the problem has been solved in two acceptable, but totally different ways in these recordings. In the Deutsche-Grammophon version, Baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau sings Orfeo with heavy intelligence and over-romantic dramatics, sacrificing some of the music's poignancy to reveal its power. In the Angel version, Mezzo-Soprano Grace Bumbry sings the role with beauty and sadness. Though it can be disconcerting to hear a female portray Orfeo, Bumbry's voice probably approximates the floating divinity Gluck envisaged in the music.

GINASTERA: BOMARZO (CBS; 3 LPs). Some scholars delight in Alberto Ginas-tera's second opera because there are all kinds of things in it. The program lists "post-Webern serialism, microtonalism, chromatic whole, aleatory forms . . . clusters, clouds and constellations . . . metrical rhythms, notated vocal lines, lyric melody and something approaching Sprechstimme, as well as pure speech." Yet few works so clearly demonstrate the dilemma of contemporary music: it titillates the intellect but leaves the heart achingly empty. If later composers follow Ginastera's ingenious path toward eclectic independence and add a bit more humanistic melody to their dry musical craftsmanship, then Bomarzo is of historical significance. This recording will be valuable to those who wonder where opera is going, for Julius Rudel's conducting is superlative and the cast is quite up to Ginastera's technical demands.

THE GOLDEN AGE OF OPERETTA: JOAN SUTHERLAND (London; 2 LPs). A ridiculously delightful collection of such golden corn as Deep in My Heart, Dear, Indian Love Call, and My Hero, revived for all the folks out there who yearn for the good old days of song. Joan Sutherland's hooty high Cs, tinkly trills and wretched pronunciation suit the high-camp sentiments (Oh! Let me drrrreeem of my dreeeem of deelighht! Oh, ho! Aaah! Ah, waverr beetweeen mahdness and ghladness tonight! Ahahahah, ho ho heel). But who can argue with Joan's special bravado?

CINEMA

2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. Director Stanley Kubrick's epic of the space age is at once a stunning visual experience and a demanding philosophical exercise that sets out to depict nothing less than the essence of our universe.

HOUR OF THE WOLF. In this eerie symbolic tale of the deepening madness of a reclusive artist, Sweden's Ingmar Bergman paints one of his most effective portraits of the dark night of the soul.

I EVEN MET HAPPY GYPSIES. This Yugoslav film uses melancholy, autumnal colors to depict the anachronistic and often tragic life styles of the Indians of Europe --gypsies.

NO WAY TO TREAT A LADY. Adroitly blending bloody homicide and black comedy, this thriller pits a psyched-up killer with a closetful of disguises (Rod Steiger) against a callow New York City cop (George Segal).

UP THE JUNCTION. Suzy Kendall, a dazzling blonde bird from Britain, is the viewer's guide in this gritty, realistic journey to a Battersea slum.

THE PRODUCERS. Writer-Comedian Mel Brooks's first film is an uneven joy ride with two canny Broadway showmen (Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder) who set out to make a fortune by staging a flop.

BOOKS

Best Reading

TUNC, by Lawrence Durrell. A devilishly clever, metaphysical mystery tale about freedom and responsibility, by the author of the Alexandria Quartet.

TO WHAT END, by Ward S. Just. The violent confusion of Viet Nam is artfully conveyed in these impressions by a Washington Post reporter who was wounded while covering the War.

DeFORD, by David Shetzline. In this sensitive first novel, an aging carpenter hangs on to his dignity and memories amidst the defeat and depravity of Skid Row.

VICTORIAN MINDS, by Gertrude Himmelfarb. An examination of mighty mentalities and mortal foolishness, by a first-rate intellectual historian in search of the sources of 20th century confusions.

CAESAR AT THE RUBICON: A PLAY ABOUT [ POLITICS, by Theodore-H. White. The manipulation of man by man is a proper concern of political journalists, and here one of the best takes an informed look at how it was done in the old days.

HISTOIRE, by Claude Simon. One of France's leading New Novelists turns a family history into lyric fragments that subtly link the nature of consciousness and the storyteller's art.

THE SELECTED WORKS OF CESARE PAVESE.

An honest, unsparing pessimism suffuses these four short novels by the Italian author who, since his suicide in 1950, has gained international critical acclaim.

Best Sellers

FICTION 1. Airport, Hailey (1 last week)

2. Myra Breckinridge, Vidal (2)

3. Vanished, Knebel (3)

4. The Tower of Babel, West (4)

5. Topaz, Uris (5)

6. Couples, Updike

7. The Confessions of Nat Turner, Styron (6)

8. Christy, Marshall (7)

9. Tune, Durrell

10. The Exhibitionist, Sutton (8)

NONFICTION 1. The Naked Ape, Morris (1)

2. Between Parent and Child, Ginott (2)

3. Our Crowd, Birmingham (3)

4. Nicholas and Alexandra, Massie (4)

5. Gipsy Moth Circles the World, Chichester (6)

6. Tolstoy, Troyat (5)

7. The Way Things Work: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Technology (8)

8. Kennedy and Johnson, Lincoln (9)

9. Rickenbacker, Rickenbacker 10. The Double Helix, Watson (10)

* All times E.S.T. through April 27; E.D.T. from then on.

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