Festival (Canadian season 8)

The eighth season of the Canadian television anthology series Festival broadcast on CBC Television from 4 October 1967 (1967-10-04) to 8 May 1968 (1968-05-08). Thirteen new episodes aired this season, along with several non-CBC productions such as Giuseppe Verdi: Messa da Requiem (1967) by French film-maker Henri-Georges Clouzot, and Elizabeth the Queen by Hallmark Hall of Fame. The season finale is Trumpets of the Lord, a joint Canadian CBC and American NET production which aired first on Festival then on NET Playhouse two days later.^[1]

Plays and adaptations include John Hopkins' play The Dolly Scene, Sinclair Ross' atmospheric drama The Painted Door adapted by Alvin Goldman, William Hanley's play Slow Dance on the Killing Ground, and André Obey's Christmas play Les trois coups de minuit (1957), translated as Frost at Midnight by Warren Tute. Harold Pinter's 1963 short story Tea Party was adapted as a play for television in 1965, and presented on Festival this season. The Best of All Possible Worlds is Mavor Moore's musical adaptation of Voltaire's satirical novella Candide (1759).

Two films were produced this season. Waiting for Caroline written by George C. Robertson and Ron Kelly, is the first feature film co-produced by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and the National Film Board of Canada, and débuted on Festival before its theater release. Timothy Findley's film The Paper People is the first television film produced entirely in-house by CBC Television without an outside coproducer.^[2]

Music this season includes American pianist Byron Janis playing Prokofiev with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (TSO) conducted by Seiji Ozawa, and selections by American coloratura soprano Reri Grist, pianist Anton Kuerti, and oboist Harold Gomberg of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. Ozawa and the TSO also present an East-West mix of traditional Japanese music and classical, featuring works by Tōru Takemitsu, György Ligeti, and Gustav Mahler. Music Director George Crum conducts as the National Ballet of Canada performs a newly choreographed version of Tchaikovsky's ballet Swan Lake by Erik Bruhn. Dancers include Bruhn, Canadian ballerina Lois Smith, Joysanne Sidimus, Celia Franca, Vanessa Harwood, Lawrence Adams, and Veronica Tennant. At Massey Hall Toronto, Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich plays Dmitri Shostakovich's new Concerto No. 2, and the recently rediscovered Haydn C Major Cello Concerto No. 1. Rostropovich's wife, Bolshoi Opera soprano Galina Vishnevskaya sings songs by Tchaikovsky in Russian to Rostropovich's piano accompaniment, recorded at Expo '67, the World's Fair in Montreal.

Notes:

• Two Centennial Performance episodes pre-empted new Festival episodes on 4 October 1967 (1967-10-04)^[3] and 15 November 1967 (1967-11-15),^[4] and the NFB Centennial film The Ernie Game aired on 8 November 1967 (1967-11-08).^[5]
• Other programs that pre-empted Festival include, pro football on 22 November 1967 (1967-11-22),^[6] The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1968) on 3 January 1968 (1968-01-03), ^[7] The Music Man (1962) on 31 January 1968 (1968-01-31),^[8] the BBC film "The Matador" on 7 February 1968 (1968-02-07),^[9] the BBC documentary Soldiers of the Widow (1967)^[10] on 21 February 1968 (1968-02-21),^[11] Mission: Impossible on 20 March 1968 (1968-03-20),^[12] the 1967 Quentin Durgens, M.P. episode "The Road to Chaldaea" on 27 March 1968 (1968-03-27),^[13] Intertel on 17 April 1968 (1968-04-17),^[14] and Stanley Cup hockey on 1 May 1968 (1968-05-01).^[15]
• Special programs that pre-empted Festival include, Film Makers and With Love, Sophia on 25 October 1967 (1967-10-25),^[16] the 60-minute documentary The Secret Years of Eldorado about Canadian participation in the nuclear age on 10 January 1968 (1968-01-10),^[17] the Newsmagazine episode "The Secrets War" on 6 March 1968 (1968-03-06),^[18] live coverage of the Liberal Party Convention on 3 April 1968 (1968-04-03),^[19] and live coverage of the Oscar Awards on 10 April 1968 (1968-04-10).^[20]
• The week of 24 January 1968 (1968-01-24), the American Hallmark Hall of Fame television film Elizabeth the Queen (1968) aired on Festival starring Judith Anderson, and Charlton Heston.^[21][22]
• For the week of 24 January 1968 (1968-01-24),^[23] Festival had procured^[24] and aired Giuseppe Verdi: Messa da Requiem (1967).^[25] Directed by French film-maker Henri-Georges Clouzot, it is a performance of Verdi's Requiem Mass with Herbert von Karajan conducting the Chorus and Orchestra of La Scala, Milan. The soloists are soprano Leontyne Price, mezzo-soprano Fiorenza Cossotto, tenor Luciano Pavarotti, and basso Nicolai Ghiaurov.

• Festival at IMDb