A Hollywood Halloween: CSO movies series opens Oct. 31
One of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's most popular innovations this decade has been its "Friday Night at the Movies" series, now in its fifth season. This fall, whether by coincidence or design, the first of its three concert programs falls on Halloween.
As a result, the 8 p.m. concert on Oct. 31 will visit Hollywood's long legacy of horror movies when it offers a showing of the 1930s Universal Studios classic, "The Bride of Frankenstein," with live accompaniment by guest conductor Richard Kaufman and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. As a special bonus, the Mel Brooks comedy "Young Frankenstein" will be shown in Orchestra Hall following the main concert. The 1974 film's cast includes Gene Wilder, Madeline Kahn, Peter Boyle, Marty Feldman, Cloris Leachman and Teri Garr. The screening (without orchestra) will be free for all concert patrons wishing to stay.
Symphony Center will also host, at 3 p.m. on the previous Saturday (Oct. 25), a program titled "Hallowed Haunts," by Kaufman and the Civic Orchestra of Chicago in a program of well-known fantasy movie music. Included will be Modest Mussorgsky's "Night on Bald Mountain" (featured in Walt Disney's original "Fantasia") along with selections from the scores of "Spider-Man," "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" and other films. This concert is recommended for ages 5 and up with special ticket prices for those ages 5 to 17.
This Oct. 25 program will be preceded by a "Haunted Ballroom," from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m., including Halloween games (with prizes) and arts and crafts activities throughout Symphony Center's Grainger Ballroom, Rotunda, Arcade and Orchestra Hall. All concertgoers are encouraged to come dressed in appropriate costumes for Halloween trick-or-treating.
In addition to the Symphony Center concert, "Hallowed Haunts" will be performed for students of Chicago-area schools in grades 4 and 5 at 10:15 a.m. Oct. 24 and 27. Students also are invited to attend the concert in costume. For more information about tickets to these weekday student matinees, call the CSO's Education, Community Relations and Diversity Department at (312) 294-3410.
The Oct. 31 showing of "The Bride of Frankenstein" will include Kaufman conducting the CSO in the world-premiere live performance of Franz Waxman's complete music score. "The Bride of Frankenstein," arguably one of the greatest horror films of all time, was Waxman's first score for an American film. The composer went on to a legendary Hollywood career, including 12 Academy Award nominations, winning Oscars for "Sunset Boulevard" and "A Place in the Sun."
Prior to the concert, at 7 p.m. in Grainger Ballroom, Kaufman will be joined by film-music historian John Waxman (son of Franz Waxman) and "Live from Lincoln Center" series creator and executive producer John Goberman in a panel discussion on "The Bride of Frankenstein" and its creative team: composer Franz Waxman, stars Boris Karloff and Elsa Lanchester and director James Whale.
A regular guest conductor for the CSO's Northern Trust "Friday Night at the Movies" series, Kaufman has been a member of the music department of MGM Studios since 1984, overseeing the music for all MGM television projects. He has conducted recordings of classic film music with the Brandenburg Philharmonic in Berlin, and he made a recording with the Nuremberg (Germany) Symphony celebrating the 100th anniversary of motion pictures. In 1996, Kaufman recorded two critically acclaimed CDs with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, conducting the film music of Alfred Newman and Victor Young.
Tickets for the Oct. 31 concert are $29-$103, with several locations sold out and others with limited availability. Visit CSO.org, or call (312) 294-3000 or 1-800-223-7114 for additional information or to order.
"Amistad" sails to New World: "Amistad," the opera by Anthony Davis commissioned and subsequently premiered by Lyric Opera of Chicago in the 1997-98 season, has just been released by New World Records in a two-CD set. "Amistad," produced at about the same time as Steven Spielberg's film of that title, tells the story and aftermath of the 1839 revolt by captives aboard La Amistad, a schooner transporting would-be slaves from Africa to America. Following the revolt, the ship wound up in the hands of the United States and the mutineers were detained in a Connecticut jail. In a landmark 1841 U.S. Supreme Court case, the slaves won their freedom, thanks to the impassioned legal arguments on their behalf by former president John Quincy Adams.
The Lyric's production, with a libretto by Thulani Davis, had 10 performances between Nov. 29, 1997 and Jan. 15, 1998. The recording, totally funded by New World Records, is drawn from those performances. The conductor is Dennis Russell Davies, with a large cast headed by Mark S. Doss, Florence Quivar, Thomas Young, Stephen West, Eugene Perry, Mark Baker, Bruce Hall, Kimberly Jones and Patrick Blackwell. George C. Wolfe was the stage director.
The recording is available for $31.98 by going to newworldrecords.org. New World, which previously released a two-CD set of Lyric Opera's 1999 world premiere of William Bolcom's "A View From the Bridge," specializes in recordings of important music by American composers.