The arts of the kitchen come first in NIGEL JARRETT's pick of top-class events for your diary in September.

START off your late summer and early autumn diary next month with a visit to the Abergavenny Food Festival.

On September 18 and 19, the annual event will welcome celebrity chefs such as Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, John Burton Race and Elisabeth Luard to share their wisdom and culinary skills.

Last year the festival was voted a winner in the Welsh national tourism awards, and for good reason.

It wouldn't be surprising if it soon added the word 'international' to its title.

Demonstrations, walks, talks and entertainment abound, and a meal at one of the many top-class restaurants in the area should complete the enjoyment.

Details from Abergavenny Tourist Information Centre (01873 857588) and from the festival website www.abergavennyfoodfestival.com.

On the same weekend, a feast for the eye will be offered at Llantarnam Grange Arts Centre's main gallery with the opening of an exhibition by the internationally-renowned Gwent artist John Selway.

Titled Another Kind of Eden, the works on view will encapsulate Selway's masterly way of combining surface light and colour with strong narrative elements.

The Selway show will take over from Layers of Perception by Welsh landscape artist John Addyman, which ends at the centre on September 11.

Seven days before that, Chepstow's annual outdoor exhibition, Art on the Railings, gives locals a chance to display and sell their work (01291 627393).

On that day in Cardiff, Welsh National Opera begins its final year at the New Theatre before moving productions to the Millennium Centre early in 2004.

On September 11 a new production of Richard Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos, conducted by former music director Carlo Rizzi, will launch a season that also includes Puccini's Turandot and Gluck's Iphigenie en Tauride (029 2087 8889).

A night at the opera of an unusual sort is arranged for St David's Hall, Cardiff, on September 15, featuring Denise Leigh and Jane Gilchrist from Channel 4's popular Operatunity programme.

The two lasses with no musical background were turned into TV divas and actually appeared with a professional company in public to prove how much they'd learned (0029 2087 8444).

Support Gwent events by all means but find time to nip over to Bath's Theatre Royal next month for Arthur Miller's The Price, in which Warren Mitchell and Larry Lamb will revive their critically-acclaimed London roles.

The Sean Holmes production plays from September 13 to 18 (01225 448844).