VIDEOSCAN

A selection of new releases for sale or rental VIRGINIA WADE'S CLASS (Directed by C.R. Clark. Produced by Brice Weisman. Sony Video) - Tennis pro Virginia Wade gives tips on how to improve your tennis game, taped at her tennis school on Captiva Island, Fla. Not only is Wade's advice helpful and clear, but her presentation is articulate and lively - and good for both beginners and more advanced players. She covers every aspect of the game from overcoming the backhand mystique to visualization and breathing exercises for tennis players. Wade's approach is holistic: She stresses the importance of learning proper technique to ``control and direct the inspiration from within.'' - Amy Duncan HOW TO BREAK INTO HEAVY METAL (Directed by Aleks Rosenberg. Produced by Rosenberg and Leonard Kalikow. By mail from Integrated Video Marketing Inc., 1501 Broadway, Suite 2307, New York, NY 10036) - Parents, before you decide to burn this video, turn it on and give your budding heavy-metal star a pad and pencil: He or she will learn all about the realities and pitfalls of the music business. Interviews with metal record and magazine executives, etc., plus members of various metal bands, including Anthrax, L.A. Guns, and White Lion, tell it straight: how to prepare a demo, create a following, advertise yourself, get a gig, eventually find a manager, a lawyer, how to deal with the realities of money (or the lack of it) while your star is rising, and eventually how to find a producer. Contains some four-letter words.

- A.D. PECOS BILL (Directed by Mark Sottnick and Tim Raglin. Music by Ry Cooder. Narration by Robin Williams. Sony Video) - Another delightful children's video (grown-ups will love it, too) from Rabbit Ears Productions. The brash ``half coyote'' Pecos Bill comes to life through the humorous semi-animated drawings of Tim Raglin and through Robin Williams's comi cal delivery. He adopts a drawling Texas accent to tell the fantastic tale of the little boy raised by coyotes who turns a rattlesnake into a rope, rides ``horseback'' on a cougar, picks his teeth with a wagonwheel, howls at the moon, and finally lassoes a twister and rides straight up to heaven, carving out the Grand Canyon as he goes. - A.D. CLAUDIO ARRAU: SIGNATURE PERFORMANCE SERIES - VOL.1 : THE 80TH BIRTHDAY RECITAL (1983. Directed by Kirk Browning. Video Artists International) - The great Chilean-born pianist is not at his most nimble in this recital. But the clinkers are more than compensated for by his marvelous sympathy with the music he selected for the event, which was videotaped at Avery Fisher Hall in Lincoln Center. The performances of two Beethoven sonatas, the ``Waldstein'' and the ``Appassionata,'' are meditative rather than passionate, and even Chopin's fiery Scherzo No. 1 in B minor, Op. 20, sounds more mellow than one might expect. The high point of the program is ``Reflets dans l'eau'' from Book 1 of Debussy's ``Images,'' played with a transparency and warmth that reflect Arrau's special appreciation of Debussy's music. It's followed by two Liszt works, ``Les Jeux d'eaux `a la Villa d'Este'' and the Ballade No. 2 in B minor. - David Sterritt OEDIPUS REX AND THE FLOOD (1984-5. Directed by Hans Hulscher and Jaap Drupsteen. Home Vision) - Visually, the two Stravinsky works on this cassette couldn't be more different. ``Oedipus Rex,'' composed in 1927 for the 20th anniversary of the Ballet Russes, is presented as a staged oratorio, directed and performed with a somber dignity that befits its Sophoclean subject and often majestic music. ``The Flood,'' composed directly for television in 1960, becomes a full-scale video opera in the hands of director Drupsteen, who accompanies the score with nonstop visual tricks and surprises. The result is diverting, if rarely inspired. Bernard Haitink conducts the first offering, Robert Craft the second. There is some nudity in ``The Flood.'' - D.S.