Faces to Watch in ’95 : We’re Counting on Them : CLASSICAL MUSIC

Some of them you know. Some you don’t. But the following artists, entertainers and executives have one thing in common: We’re counting on each to mae a significant impact or difference in their respective fields this year. Sure, there will be thers who make a splash, but after we talked with dozens of people who work in entertainment and the arts, these were the names mentioned most often. You might say that Jim Carrey was a face to watch in ‘94, and you would be right. But, based on “Ace Ventura,” “The Mask,” and “Dumb and Dumber,” Carrey’s ’95 should bear watching. Another pair of familiar faces--Jay Leno and David Letterman--appear on our list. Why? Haven’t we looked at these guys enough? Well, truth be told, how do you know what’s going to happen to them this year? Fame can be sooooo fleeting.

Valery Gergiev

Modern Russia has never lacked important musicians, but until relatively recently, most of them remained hidden behind an Iron Curtain. Valery Gergiev, 41, is the most consistently impressive conductor to emerge from what used to be the Soviet Union. As head of the Kirov Theater, he has made the St. Petersburg opera and orchestra a major international force, easily eclipsing the once-mighty Bolshoi.

Flamboyant yet thoughtful, temperamental yet sensitive, the workaholic led his Kirov players on a triumphant U.S. tour this fall, conducted a brilliant, modernist production of Prokofiev’s “Fiery Angel” in San Francisco and enriched the catalogue with definitive recordings of several Russian masterpieces. The native Muscovite returns to Southern California to close the Los Angeles Philharmonic season with two unusual programs in May (including a concert performance of Tchaikovsky’s seldom-heard “Iolanta”) and brings another Western rarity to San Francisco in September: Glinka’s “Ruslan and Lyudmila.”