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

OPERA

Paying the Price: Andrea Bocelli’s fans are obviously willing to pay up when it comes to seeing the Italian tenor in concert. The top-priced tickets for Bocelli’s April 15 show at the 13,000-seat Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim--which carry whopping price tags of $500 (for the front row), $350 (rows 2-5) and $250 (rows 6-10)--are already sold out, even though the tickets were made available Sunday to American Express card-holders only. The $500 cap--set jointly by Bocelli’s management and the concert promoters, Neiderlander and Concerts West--is one of the highest prices ever for a non-benefit show, and certainly the top price ever at the Pond, although a large number of seats for Barbra Streisand’s 1994 shows there went for $350. A Pond spokeswoman said that there are “still excellent seats available” at prices of $125, $85 and $65, which will be sold to the general public this Sunday. When asked about the $500 price, the Pond spokeswoman noted that the concert’s organizers had figured that scalpers would offer the best seats for about that price, and they wanted the money to go to “the show, not the scalpers.”

TELEVISION

Talking About Monica: ABC’s Monica Lewinsky coverage Wednesday won’t stop with Barbara Walters’ interview with the former White House intern. Only an hour after the 9-11 p.m. “20/20” broadcast, the network will air a special edition of “Politically Incorrect With Bill Maher” in which Maher and his guests (including Kathy Ireland and John Henson) will respond to Lewinsky’s comments. Although the 12:05 a.m. show will be tape-delayed here, it will air live on the East Coast. . . . Author Andrew Morton--the Princess Diana biographer who’s also doing the anticipated “Monica’s Story”--will make his first U.S. television appearance about the new biography in a two-part appearance on Thursday’s and Friday’s “Today” on NBC.

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We Haven’t Sunk That Far: Despite all the discussion in the media during the past year about oral sex, a two-word colloquial reference to that act on ABC’s “The Practice”--used in a preview tape sent to critics--was replaced by the word “fellatio” when the episode was broadcast Sunday. A network spokesman indicated that the network’s standards and practices department vetoed the original term. The legal drama scored its highest audience this season, meanwhile, based on preliminary estimates, although NBC won the night with strong ratings for its effects-laden movie “Alice in Wonderland.”

ART

Outsiders to Steer 2000 Biennial: For the first time in its 68-year history, New York’s prestigious Whitney Biennial will be produced in 2000 with a team of guest curators, rather than the New York museum’s own personnel. Among the team of six curators assembled for the project is Hugh M. Davies, the director of San Diego’s Museum of Contemporary Art, who told the New York Times he’s hoping to help give the show a “West Coast perspective, which some say has been sadly lacking.” Other guest curators, who will work under new Whitney Director Maxwell L. Anderson, are Michael G. Auping of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Valerie Cassel of the Art Institute of Chicago, Jan Farver of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s List Visual Arts Center, Lawrence R. Rinder of San Francisco’s California College of Arts and Crafts, and Hartford-based independent curator Andrea Miller-Keller. Anderson has said he opted for an outside curatorial team because the Whitney’s own staff is consumed with planning the April 1999 show “The American Century: 1900-2000,” which he called “the largest exhibition in history.”

MOVIES

Playing With Bugs: Disney’s “A Bug’s Life” is headed to the world of video games, with a Nintendo 64 game due this spring. The 3-D adventure game will allow players to run, fly and slide through an interactive journey seen from a bug’s-eye-view. Players will take on the role of the film’s ant hero, Flik.

QUICK TAKES

NBC has ordered 13 episodes of a new animated David Spade series loosely based on his real-life experiences with his father. Spade will executive produce and do voices for the two lead characters of the midseason series, which is tentatively titled “Sammy.” . . . “The Big Moment,” an hourlong comedy-variety show hosted by Brad Sherwood (“Whose Line Is It Anyway?”), will join ABC’s lineup on April 3, airing in the Saturday 8 p.m. time slot. . . . ABC’s “General Hospital” won six awards, including favorite show and outstanding lead actor (Anthony Geary) at the 15th annual Soap Opera Digest Awards that aired Friday night on NBC. NBC’s “Days of Our Lives” and ABC’s “All My Children” won four honors apiece. . . . Bob Hope, who has received numerous accolades for entertaining U.S. troops, is getting another honor: Hasbro toys’ Hollywood Hero, a G.I. doll created in his likeness. . . . Funny lady Phyllis Diller, 81, suffered a “mild” heart attack on Feb. 10 and will be given a pacemaker, her manager said Monday. . . . The Woody Harrelson film “The Hi-Lo Country” will receive the Western Heritage Award from the National Cowboy Hall of Fame in Albuquerque. The award, to be presented April 24, honors works that exemplify the West.

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Quotable: “I’m certainly going to think about it. [But] when I do decide that I’m done, it will be because I feel I have done what I needed to do, not because of any one person ever.”--Talk-show host Oprah Winfrey, on today’s “Roseanne” show, discussing a recent British interview that quoted her as saying she would quit her talk show when her contract ends in 2002 because rival host Jerry Springer was turning talk shows into a “vulgarity circus.”