ROANOKE TIMES 

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, April 30, 1990                   TAG: 9004280292
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: E3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: VIENNA                                LENGTH: Medium

WOLF TRAP ANNOUNCES SEASON LINEUP

A record 91 performances, from Handel's "Royal Fireworks Music" to comedian Bill Cosby and country singer Willie Nelson, will be presented this summer at Wolf Trap Farm Park for the Performing Arts.

The entertainment lineup for Wolf Trap's 20th anniversary season, also will include the Soviet Union's celebrated Bolshoi Ballet, the New York City Opera and the New York Philharmonic.

The season opens May 30 and runs through Sept. 15.

Wolf Trap officials said they expect audiences at the 1990 season, to exceed the record 438,000 people who attended Wolf Trap's 85 performances last summer. Ticket sales last year also reached an all-time high of $7,290,000.

The new season will begin with a fund-raising gala featuring a performance of George Frideric Handel's "Royal Fireworks Music." The performance will feature original instruments and an authentic fireworks display based on the pyrotechnics designed for the work's premiere in 1749.

The Bolshoi, returning to the open-air Filene Center theater for the first time in 17 years, will perform "Giselle" and "Ivan the Terrible" on July 24-29, followed by the U.S. debut of the newly minted Sergei Eisenstein film, "Ivan the Terrible." The film's Sergei Prokofiev score will be performed by the National Symphony Orchestra.

Contemporary headliners will include Bobby McFerrin with Chick Corea, Anita Baker, Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme, Rickie Lee Jones and Robert Goulet in a season-closing appearance in "The Fantasticks."

Classical offerings also will include the Joffrey and Miami City ballet companies, the Wolf Trap Opera performing the East Coast premiere of Rossini's long-lost opera, "The Journey to Rheims," and the U.S. debut of the Hannover Staatsorchester from Germany. 


 by CNB