Families and children were invited to the Maison symphonique on Sunday afternoon for a show filled with magic, humour and, above all, music. The OSM’s Halloween concert, “Wizards and Witches”, enchanted young and old alike with relevant and evocative musical pieces, as well as a playful and charming staging.
The OSM, conducted by Cosette Justo Valdés, presented a program that blended famous works from the classical and film repertoires, such as the opening Harry Potter theme (Hedwige’s) and excerpts from Paul Dukas’s Sorcerer’s Apprentice and Camille Saint-Saëns’s Danse macabre, as well as less conventional pieces, such as Richard Wagner’s Overture to The Flying Dutchman, or an excerpt from Modeste Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, the ninth picture evoking the witch Baba Yaga (from Slavic folklore). The concert closes with the fifth movement of Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique, which the OSM performed last year at the end of the season, largely because it evokes the Witches’ Sabbath.
The works were linked by the staging created by Les ateliers d’Amélie, with lead actor Olivier Morin, who charmed the audience with his Harry Potter-inspired character of a master magician. He takes the audience through his life, from his service as a sailor to meeting his beloved and grieving years later. The choreography is pleasant and interesting, especially during the waltz passage (Mussorgsky) where the actors move through the Maison symphonique, visiting the octobass and the chorus. The text elicits plenty of laughter from the audience, and occasional surprises thanks to stage effects such as lighting and smoke effects, which are timely and very well done.
Musically, the quality of the performance is exemplary. One might even go so far as to say that the version of Hedwige’s theme is better than the original. The works presented or evoked are perfectly mastered by the orchestra, who have surely played them dozens of times before, at least.
It’s worth noting that the program is a little tightly woven, and some of the pieces seem forced in the staging. Also, the works of Dukas and Saint-Saëns are reduced to brief, simplistic evocations. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice goes far beyond a dancing broom! The staging did much to keep the children’s attention, but we felt that the audience was more attentive during the well-known pieces (Harry Potter) and a little less so on the more abstract works (Wagner and Mussorgsky, for example). It would also seem to have been a missed opportunity to include an educational aspect to the concert. Efforts at mediation were limited to brief images and riddles on the pre-concert screen, which were quite appreciated by families.
This is, however, the thinking of someone whose concerns are slightly different from the target audience. The concert was a success, and we salute the quality of the music and staging. We hope next year will be just as good!
To find out more about OSM concerts and youth concerts, visit the programming page HERE.
