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

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.

June Anderson

Los Angeles first encountered June Anderson, 42, as an unheralded Donna Elvira in “Don Giovanni” with the New York City Opera in 1980. The fearless singing actress was last seen at the Music Center virtually climbing the walls as the dangerously demented heroine in Andrei Serban’s wildly eccentric production of “Lucia di Lammermoor” in 1993.

Anderson, born in Boston and trained at Yale, is internationally regarded as a thinking-person’s diva. Although she specializes in the ornate bel-canto repertory, she never settles for the pretty sounds and empty vocal acrobatics favored by most of her illustrious predecessors. Her high, lustrous soprano is heftier and capable of more dramatic shading than the average dainty coloratura, and she always places tone at the service of text.

She returns to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in May for an uncharacteristic Verdi assignment, portraying the tragically placid Desdemona opposite the Otellos of Placido Domingo and Vladimir Bogachov.