Arts and entertainment reports from The Times, national and international news services and the nation’s press.

THE ARTS

‘Decency’ Remains Unconstitutional: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit announced Tuesday that it has upheld a lower court ruling that found the National Endowment for the Arts’ “decency” statute to be unconstitutional. The suit was originally filed by four performance artists--Karen Finley, John Fleck, Holly Hughes and Tim Miller--who were denied grants by the NEA, which had adopted a statute enacted by Congress in 1990 mandating that “general standards of decency” be considered when making funding decisions. David Cole, a member of the legal team that represented the artists and the National Assn. of Artists’ Organizations, said: “This decision means that from now on the NEA must concern itself with art, not politics or decency.” A spokesperson for the NEA said the endowment would have no comment until its staff could study the decision. The Justice Department has 90 days to decide whether to continue the appeal process.

MUSIC

But He Still Wants to Direct: British painter David Hockney says he has sworn off designing opera sets because the opera companies lack vision. “The trouble is that opera people are so un-visual, they’ve no sense themselves of color or plasticity or space,” Hockney said in the November issue of BBC Music Magazine, critiquing the Royal Opera, for which he has designed numerous sets (he’s done the same for the Los Angeles Music Center Opera). Hockney also knocked the U.S. opera scene, criticizing productions of Wagner’s Ring Cycle at New York’s Metropolitan Opera House. “There’s the dragon doomed to guard the wretched gold when he might be enjoying the green forest,” he said. “But there’s no forest magic to tempt him since the whole place is the color of a dried cow pat. The music says green, green and the set mumbles mud, mud.” Hockney’s disillusionment with design will not affect his scheduled first outing as an opera director for the Los Angeles Music Center Opera revival of “Tristan und Isolde,” scheduled for a January-February engagement at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. The production will use Hockney’s original sets.

‘Ernest’ Search Continues: A recent New York Times article on the ongoing rivalry at the New York Philharmonic between orchestra maestro Kurt Masur and his managerial partner, Deborah Borda, quotes Borda as saying she received “a recent feeler” from the Los Angeles Philharmonic with regard to the L.A. orchestra’s managing director position, slated to open in June when current manager Ernest Fleischmann steps down. While Borda refused comment, L.A. Philharmonic President Robert Attiyeh said Tuesday that “I believe our search firm asked her advice on candidates,” but added the orchestra has made no offers and the search for a successor has only reached the stage of compiling a “short list” of fewer than 10 candidates from the “top 20 orchestras in the United States, the top 20 orchestras in Europe and Asia, and leaders of musical institutions, such as conservatories and schools.” Attiyeh noted that, while the goal is to name a successor by June, Fleischmann is available to remain on a part-time basis until at least June 1998. “We don’t want to rush into this thing,” Attiyeh said.

POP/ROCK

Tupac Sales: Tupac Shakur’s posthumous album, “Makaveli: The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory,” appeared to get off to a brisk sales start Tuesday in the Los Angeles area. “We’ve already sold 100 out of the box,” Todd Meehan, manager of Tower Records in West Hollywood, said around noon. “Sales will pick up even more when [novice fans] realize that Makaveli is Tupac, and that it’s his new release.” The Death Row album, distributed by MCA Inc. through its association with Interscope Records, was recorded by Shakur under the pseudonym Makaveli shortly before he died Sept. 13 after being shot by unknown assailants in Las Vegas. Shakur’s previous album, the two-disc collection “All Eyez on Me,” sold approximately 566,000 in its first week in the stores last spring--the second-highest first week of any album this year. The new collection is also expected to enter the charts next week at No. 1. . . . Meanwhile, MCA Inc. confirmed that it will distribute another Death Row album, Snoop Doggy Dogg’s “Tha Doggfather,” which will be released Tuesday.

MOVIES

Hoffman to Be Honored: Dustin Hoffman will receive this year’s Cecil B. DeMille Award from the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. for “his outstanding contribution to the entertainment field” at the 54th annual Golden Globes Awards, to be telecast on NBC Jan. 19. Hoffman, an Academy Award winner for “Kramer vs. Kramer” and “Rain Man,” has been nominated for 11 Golden Globes in the last three decades and received five.

SHORT TAKES

Catholic-raised singer Sinead O’Connor, who gained notoriety by tearing up a photo of the pope on “Saturday Night Live” several years ago, is reportedly stirring up more controversy in Ireland by playing a foul-mouthed incarnation of the Virgin Mary in Neil Jordan’s film “The Butcher Boy.” . . . North Hollywood writer producer Lionel Chetwynd (NBC’s “To Heal a Nation”) will be keynote speaker at Veterans Day ceremonies at Washington’s Veterans Memorial Monday. . . . The ACLU of Southern California will honor actor William Baldwin, record producer Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds and dance choreographer Bella Lewitzky for championing civil rights, during the group’s annual Bill of Rights dinner, Dec. 16 at the Regent Beverly Wilshire. . . . Linda Vester, who has been an NBC correspondent in Chicago, has been named permanent anchor for “NBC News at Sunrise,” starting Monday.