Mary J Blige Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts August 3
Wolf Trap is the kind of concert venue where you can see Jennifer Hudson, Nas, or Seth MacFarlane alongside the National Symphony Orchestra—in the same nighttime. It might host the American Ballet Theatre in the same calendar week as Kesha. And don't exist surprised if a cottontail rabbit hops downwards the aisle during a show or squirrels frolic a few feet abroad, though the wolves that were once then abundant hither that they inspired the place's name have long vanished.
This July marks half a century for the country's only national park dedicated to the performing arts—from rap to the symphony, from bluegrass to Broadway musicals, from stand-upward comedy to ballet. Its partnership with the NSO, which provides backing instrumentation for pop music acts, encapsulates Wolf Trap's unique marriage of fine arts and pop civilisation. And it all unfolds amid 117 acres of Northern Virginia nature. Many of the biggest legends in show business concern have made the trek to Vienna to perform hither, and presidents and royalty accept come to watch them from the 7,028-capacity Filene Center, the half-indoor, half-outdoor venue with 3,800 seats under cover aslope space for virtually 3,200 people to spread out on the lawn.
"The first time we brought Sting in a few years ago, he came and did three nights. If all you want to do is brand every bit much money every bit you lot can in the smallest amount of time, he could have played a xx,000-person venue for one nighttime. Merely he did 3 nights with u.s.a.," says Wolf Trap president and CEO Arvind Manocha. "That's always meaningful and shows a real delivery to the audition."
Over the decades, acts such as Bob Dylan, Ray Charles, the Beach Boys, Aretha Franklin, Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Bennett, Dizzy Gillespie, Paul Simon, Diana Ross, Dolly Parton, John Denver, Willie Nelson, Whitney Houston, and Ringo Starr have trooped through the Filene Center. At the same time, the operation hall features some of the biggest modern pop acts, hosting Demi Lovato, Meghan Trainor, Charlie Puth, Halsey, and Carly Rae Jepsen in contempo years. And it never forgets the fine arts—2016's Romeo and Juliet and 2019'southward Swan Lake, both featuring ballet superstar Misty Copeland, rank amid the highest-demand shows Wolf Trap has produced in contempo years.
"We staged Puccini's La Bohème in 2009 with the NSO on a cute night: 80 degrees, no humidity. We had likewise staged ['90s Broadway musical] Rent earlier in the flavor, which is based on La Bohème, but the 2 endings are very different. I heard a woman backside me turn to her friend and say, 'This isn't how it'due south supposed to end!'" says vice president for opera and classical programming Lee Anne Myslewski. "It was a adept reminder that people are dovetailing this older art grade with newer art forms."
The NSO also joins the centuries-old art form of symphony with the newer art form of movies. Several times each summertime, information technology performs iconic scores aslope the original films, projected on a massive screen. In recent years, the titles have included La La Land, Jaws, Jurassic Park, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and several installments of the Harry Potter series. For one song during Star Wars, conductor Emil de Cou even replaced his baton with a lightsaber.
Old acts, new acts, fine arts, the movies—you tin can find these things at various other venues, too. But Wolf Trap brings them all together, and equally a national park, it besides boasts breathtaking hiking trails and outdoor opportunities, providing a unique blend of nature and the arts. Even if the main attraction is a performance that dark, many concertgoers make a whole twenty-four hours of their visit to Wolf Trap by hiking, birdwatching, and bringing a picnic to the lawn to savour equally the sun sets.
The history
All of this started with a visionary adult female: Catherine Filene Shouse, who held a Labor Department position at the age of 21, in 1917, and was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1994. She was the granddaughter of William Filene, founder of the section shop Filene's. In 1966, Shouse donated almost 100 acres of her Northern Virginia farmland to the U.S. Department of the Interior, forth with the funds to build a large outdoor amphitheater.
But fifty-fifty that didn't make the national park a washed deal. "JFK had appointed a mettlesome interior secretary named Stewart Lee Udall, who was retained by LBJ," says one-time National Park Service manager Bob Stanton, who at present lives in Fairfax Station and still frequents Wolf Trap. "Information technology was Udall'due south vision and enthusiastic support that really gave the indication to members of Congress that they should enact this legislation." In 1966, the House of Representatives voted to create the national park, 195–105.
Wolf Trap formally opened to the public five years after. The debut shows on July i and 2, 1971, starred several acts, including pianist Van Cliburn, the U.Due south. Marine Ring, and New York City Opera star Norman Treigle. (Treigle'due south granddaughter Emily will perform at Wolf Trap this summer, stepping into the title role in Holst'due south opera Sāvitri.)
That August, Richard and Pat Nixon attended a performance of Musical Theater Cavalcade, a revue featuring numbers from various musicals. "I thought it was a great evidence," the president told The New York Times that night. "Without question, there will be some bully stars produced from this company and from others like them."
Shouse remained a frequent fixture at shows through the years before passing away in 1994 at the age of 98. Annie Coppola, director of planned giving, remembers Shouse writing a personal give thanks-y'all letter to a donor who gave a relatively modest $25 in 1978. "She would e'er ask people at a show, 'What was your experience this evening? Where did you park? Did you bring a picnic?'" says Coppola. "She was always thinking about how we could engage."
The challenges
Running a world-class functioning venue in the centre of former Virginia farmland isn't always a walk in the park. That's especially true because Wolf Trap isn't devoted exclusively to the fine arts. For example, at a venue like the Metropolitan Opera in New York, a typical performance will run from seven to 21 performances. For Wolf Trap's 2018 production of Verdi'due south Rigoletto, they built an entire production and fix at the Met'due south scale, simply for only one dark.
Merely getting out to the sprawling park in Vienna tin be difficult for some would-be visitors, who make the pilgrimage from around NoVA, DC, and beyond. In the 1980s, to better accessibility for those who do non own a car, Wolf Trap and Fairfax Connector added a shuttle motorbus to and from the West Falls Church building Metro station for $5. The organisation isn't foolproof, though: When taking the train to Wolf Trap in 2019, Wait, Wait … Don't Tell Me! host Peter Sagal was nearly late to his own show because he'd loaded 25 cents too little on his SmarTrip carte du jour.
Some complain that the lawn is as well steep, with 1 patron telling The Washington Post that he spent his one and but lawn experience "trying to keep from rolling down the hill." (He has paid to sit in the house seating ever since.)
For years, though, the biggest obstruction Wolf Trap had to overcome was when a fire completely destroyed the Filene Center on Apr 4, 1982. The burn down's cause and origin were never conclusively determined. With only six weeks until the summer season was set up to boot off, Wolf Trap managed to build a temporary half dozen,500-seat structure in record fourth dimension. The reconstructed Filene Eye opened in 1984.
Nevertheless, nothing compared to concluding twelvemonth, when the pandemic close downwards its entire alive schedule. Forced to keep its phase empty, Wolf Trap turned to streamed virtual performances instead. One such stream showcased opera songs inspired by woodland scenes in shows like A Midsummer Nighttime's Dream and Hansel and Gretel, performed exterior in the park'due south actual woods.
Wolf Trap also doubled down on its Early on Learning for the Arts program, which uses techniques from music and dance to help teachers accelerate curriculum objectives in preschool, kindergarten, and first grade. For case, the lessons point out the correlation between dance patterns and simple geometry, applying the concepts of spatial relations in choreography to shapes. Around 90 percent of the participating schools final yr were Title I, the Education Section'due south designation for schools with a higher proportion of underprivileged children. The program actually delivered more education services in 2020 than in 2019.
The future
The bright side of an otherwise accommodating atrocious year? "We acquired more than one,000 new donors in 2020, which is shocking during this time when you lot're not really that active," says vice president of development Sara Jaffe. "It speaks to the legacy of Wolf Trap. While last year was really difficult, philanthropy was a silver lining."
This comes amid a positive longer-term tendency for Wolf Trap'south financials. In the past decade, its membership base approximately doubled, while money raised more than than quadrupled, says Jaffe. That kind of largesse from corporations, foundations, and individuals is essential considering ticket sales alone aren't commonly enough to cover all the costs of bringing an act on stage.
And yet they'll go on coming.
"I always like coming together people who say, 'I look at Wolf Trap's agenda when you announce the shows; I pick five that I love and three more that I've never fifty-fifty heard of.' Because they know we're going to exercise something good," says Manocha, the CEO, with a grin. "Or meeting people who say they used to come to our Children'due south Theatre-in-the-Woods, and now they bring their children. After years and years, it becomes a family tradition. That is always gratifying."
Fifty years, he figures, is just the beginning.
"The National Park Service is actually in the 'forever' business," says Manocha. "So in that sense, fifty years is just ane step toward forever."
This story originally ran in our July issue. For more stories like this, subscribe to our monthly magazine.
Source: https://northernvirginiamag.com/culture/culture-features/2021/06/28/a-look-at-the-history-and-future-of-wolf-trap-as-it-turns-50/
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