OPERA WATCH.(performance-arts video stars singer Jennifer Larmore)(this and other items are discussed)(Brief Article)

1. A new performing-arts video series, In Performance, debuts this month on VAI home video and DVD with a recital by JENNIFER LARMORE, taped in January at Purchase College in Westchester. Larmore, who is the Metropolitan Opera's Isabella in L'Italiana in Algeri this month, takes on another bel canto heroine in March, when she sings Donizetti's La Favorita with Opera Orchestra of New York at Carnegie Hall (7). April finds her at the Vienna State Opera for more Isabellas (2, 5, 10) and a pair of Carmens (22, 25). She finishes out the spring in Paris, with a June run as Marguerite in La Damnation de Faust at the Opera de la Bastille.

2. Winners of the 2000 and 1999 ARIA awards were saluted at an autumn party at the Manhattan home of Mr. and Mrs. Wilmer J. Thomas, President and Chairman of ARIA. The program, which annually provides three $15,000 awards to promising American opera singers, featured mezzo-soprano JOYCE DI DONATO and sopranos NICOLE HEASTON and EMILY PULLEY in its class of 2000. 1999 awards honored bass Eric Owens, baritone Mel Ulrich and countertenor David Walker. Winners for 2001 will be announced in April.

3. DAVID WALKER, whose Nero conquered the Coliseum last autumn in The Coronation of Poppea for ENO, makes his Los Angeles Opera debut this month as Nireno in Giulio Cesare (Feb. 23-March 10). Handel ...