ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT REPORTS FROM THE TIMES, NEWS SERVICES AND THE NATION’S PRESS.

THE ARTS

Opera Watch: : As Placido Domingo prepares to take charge of the Los Angeles Opera at the end of the 1999-2000 season, he’s reportedly thinking about hiring a music director. According to sources close to the opera, the conductor he has in mind is Kent Nagano, a Grammy-winning Bay Area native currently winding up his last season as leader of England’s Halle Orchestra before taking over the German Symphony Orchestra, Berlin. The 48-year-old Nagano would be the first person to hold that title in the L.A. company’s 13-year history. He has conducted twice at L.A. Opera--most recently, a well-received 1990 production of John Adams’ “Nixon in China.” Neither Domingo, Nagano nor the Los Angeles Opera would comment on the possible collaboration.

POP/ROCK

Turning Up the Heat: The feud between ‘N Sync and Orlando, Fla., businessman Louis J. Pearlman, the impresario credited with the group’s early success, has intensified with the teen idols’ filing of a $25-million countersuit against Pearlman that accuses him of fraud and breach of contract. The move was a response to the $150-million suit filed last month by BMG Entertainment’s RCA Records and Pearlman’s Trans Continental Records that sought to block ‘N Sync’s efforts to become a free agent and sign with Jive Records. The group, which has sold more than 8 million albums in the U.S., claims it has seen only a fraction of the proceeds of its album sales, tours and merchandising. In the suit filed this week, ‘N Sync’s Joshua “J.C.” Chasez calls Pearlman an “unscrupulous, greedy” mogul who “while hugging us and calling us family was picking our pockets, robbing us of our future.” Despite a joint statement from Pearlman and BMG labeling those statements “false and inflammatory rhetoric,” a source in Pearlman’s camp says a settlement has been put on the table.

MOVIES

Touche: Robert De Niro and Harvey Weinstein may have been rebuffed in their bid to build a film studio in Brooklyn, so why not . . . New Jersey? Officials of the Hudson County town of Harrison, near Newark, confirmed Wednesday that they met with Miramax Films head Weinstein, De Niro and with Jane Rosenthal--the actor’s partner in TriBeCa Films--about possibly bringing their project to a sprawling redevelopment site in that community. Last month, New York officials infuriated De Niro and Weinstein by announcing that they were bypassing the high-profile Weinstein/De Niro team--whom they earlier had wooed--as developers of a $150-million cluster of sound stages at the old Brooklyn Navy Yard, in favor of a New York Studios partnership.

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Rip-Off: MGM reports that more than 30% of the 270 posters for “The World Is Not Enough,” the James Bond movie opening Nov. 19, have been stolen after being displayed at Los Angeles and Orange County bus stops for the past two weeks. “This has happened before in my 13 years in advertising--on films like ‘Batman’ and ‘Tomorrow Never Dies,’ ” said Jeff Killingsworth, senior vice president of media at the studio. “Never, however, to this extent.” One of the posters depicted an action montage while another featured a silhouette of Bond and a woman in flames.

TELEVISION

Early Returns: Monday’s premiere broadcast of CBS’ “The Early Show,” anchored by Bryant Gumbel and Jane Clayson, delivered a preliminary 3.0/11 Nielsen household rating, improving the season-to-date time period delivery by 20% among adults ages 25 to 54 and by 25% on adults ages 18 to 49. Monday’s “Today” show was up 17% and 20% respectively in those categories, while “Good Morning America” was up 13% and 19%.

STAGE

Nine-Day ‘Theatre Week’: As part of the Cultural Affairs Department’s millennium festivities, L.A. Mayor Richard Riordan is scheduled to proclaim Saturday through Nov. 14 as “Theatre Week” this morning at the Geffen Playhouse. The event coincides with Monday’s Ovation Awards, the Edge of the World Theater Festival and the Mark Taper Forum’s New Work Festival. Two-for-One Arts Cards are being sent to those on the cultural affairs mailing list and are available at 20 venues.

QUICK TAKES

Pet Art, a celebrity auction of art and photography, will be held at 3:30 p.m. Sunday at the El Rey Theatre, 5515 Wilshire Blvd., to benefit PAWS/LA, a group dedicated to keeping people with HIV/AIDS and their pets together. . . . Christopher Cuomo, son of former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo, joins ABC News as a correspondent for “20/20” on Nov. 15.