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

MUSIC

Israelis Not Ready for Wagner: Israel’s only opera company has concluded that Israeli audiences are not ready to hear works by German composer Richard Wagner, whose operas blared over loudspeakers in Nazi death camps. The Tel Aviv-based New Israeli Opera held a public meeting Saturday to gather audience feedback on the idea of staging a Wagner work. The forum--”Wagner, Artist or Symbol”--turned emotional, with audience members shouting down a singer and pianist who tried to perform a sample Wagner piece. Wagner was a self-declared anti-Semite who railed against what he considered the undue influence of Jews in Germany’s music circles. Adolf Hitler, who came to power 50 years after the composer’s death, believed his music glorified the concept of a master race. The New Israeli Opera said the issue of whether to stage Wagner’s works--a question that has sparked stormy protest in the past in Israel--will be taken up again at a future meeting of the opera board. After a 1981 Israel Philharmonic Orchestra concert, conductor Zubin Mehta announced as an encore the prelude to the Wagner opera “Tristan and Isolde,” to which the audience cried, “Shame!,” and an usher rushed to the stage, pulling up his shirt to show Nazi-inflicted scars.

POP/ROCK

Joel Out of Tour: Suffering from a nodule on his vocal cord and an asthmatic condition, Billy Joel has pulled out of a European concert tour with Elton John, leading to the cancellation of a heavily promoted HBO special, “Elton John and Billy Joel: Face to Face: Live in Vienna,” which was scheduled to be broadcast June 20. John will continue the tour by himself. Joel suffered an asthma attack compounded by a lingering respiratory infection at the opening show of the tour last Tuesday in Scotland. Reviewers noted bitter winds at the open-air concert. After a Thursday show in Manchester was canceled after Joel backed out, John performed alone Saturday and Sunday at Wembley Stadium in London. Joel, 49, said Friday that he couldn’t “hack” being on tour at his age. “In the old days I could scream and punch my way through it,” he said, “but now it wouldn’t be fair to my fans.”

No Satisfaction for Stones Fans: Mick Jagger’s time at the London School of Economics may be paying off. The Rolling Stones have called off the British leg of their world tour, saying that government tax reforms would cost them $20 million and make their entire European tour a money-losing venture, the Times of London reported. The new tax laws, which took effect in March, are designed to close a loophole that allowed British residents working abroad to earn money tax-free. If the four British shows were to go ahead, the group would have to pay tax on earnings from the entire “Bridges to Babylon” European tour, the newspaper said. The shows in Edinburgh, Sheffield and London have been postponed until June 1999, a new tax year.

Family Lobbies for Guitarist: Dan Cedrone, who recorded the blazing guitar lick on Bill Haley & His Comets’ seminal rock classic “(We’re Gonna) Rock Around the Clock,” never cashed in on the song’s success. The guitarist, who was paid $21 for his work, fell down a flight of stairs and broke his neck two months later, dying at 33, just two months before a planned “Ed Sullivan Show” appearance. But now his family is negotiating Cedrone’s recognition by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. They want the museum to enshrine his honey-brown, ES-300 Gibson guitar, which the family recovered after his widow pawned it to feed her children years ago. And the family wants MCA record executives to give Cedrone’s 82-year-old widow, Millie, a gold record for the 1954 song. “We’ve been the only voices in the wilderness here,” Cedrone’s son-in-law, Carlos Alvarez, told the Philadelphia Inquirer. “We’re not asking for a red cent. But we hope someday Dan Cedrone gets his rightful spot. . . . With that guitar lead, everybody freaked out. They thought it was Pandora’s box opening. You know, let’s kick out the doors.”

TELEVISION

NBC Sets Policy: Responding to a complaint from the Media Action Network for Asian Americans about the use of the term “Chinaman’s nightcap” to describe heroin in an April 9 episode of “Seinfeld,” the network’s standards and content policy division has declared that the term will not appear in future NBC shows. Rosalyn Weinman, executive vice president of the division, said in a letter to the organization that the broadcast standards editor “initially did not believe the term ‘Chinaman’s nightcap’ was one that would be considered denigrating within both the comedic and the scene’s context.” However, Weinman said, “We wish to assure you that the term is one that we will certainly not allow in the future.” Media Action Network executives said they were pleased with the response but were still seeking a public apology from NBC, as well as assurances that the reference will be deleted out of reruns of the episode.

QUICK TAKES

“Pete’s Garden,” a short film written and directed by “Ally McBeal” co-star Greg Germann, will screen today-Thursday at noon and 12:30 p.m. at the Laemmle Town Center Theater in Encino. . . . The UPN network will expand its prime-time lineup to five nights in October, a few weeks after the traditional TV season begins on the other networks. UPN--which currently programs Monday through Wednesday--will add a Thursday movie and two series on Friday nights. . . . CBS has ordered more episodes of its western drama “The Magnificent Seven” as a backup series for next season. Based on the movie, the program premiered in January but had been left off the network’s fall lineup.