ST. JOHN'S, N.L. — It wasn’t your typical night out with the Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra on Friday. This year marks the first time the NSO has celebrated Halloween, and they paid tribute to the holiday by teaming up with local playwright Kyle McDavid of Best Kind Productions to create a brand new original show, touting fun for the whole family at the St. John's Arts and Culture Centre.
“Henry Hiccup and the Forbidden Orchestra,” a take on the ever-popular Harry Potter franchise, saw child actors tell a spooky story of magical delight, with the NSO performing behind them.
Using magic wands — or for muggles in attendance, a pointer finger — the audience summoned the orchestra onto the stage.
Decked out in costumes, one could spot a Raggedy Ann doll, Michael Jackson, Velma from Scooby-Doo, Mario, Julius Caesar, a clown, Wednesday Addams, Doc from “Back to the Future,” a group of Vikings and a slew of mummies on percussion.
Concertmaster and evil villain Heather Kao performed a trick of her own, using a cello bow to summon her violin, which descended from the ceiling.
Conductor Marc David, dressed as Dracula, entered shortly after Kao’s violin case, as a fog machine filled the stage with a thick layer of spooky mist.
“Night On Bald Mountain” was the first selection. Composed by Modest Mussorgsky, the piece tells the story of witches going to their Sabbath, coincidentally on St. John’s Eve. The composition was never performed during Mussorgsky’s lifetime, but surely he would have felt pride in the NSO’s rendition.
Camille Saint-Saëns’ “Danse Macabre” followed. This piece also has a spooky backstory, based on a French superstition about Death appearing at midnight on Halloween, playing fiddle for the dead. On Friday night, Death’s fiddle solo was replaced with violin, played by Kao.
The first of many Harry Potter soundtrack selections came next, with the actors singing John Williams “Double Trouble,” after frantically searching the haunted forest for the missing Henry Hiccup.
Henry has awoken from his sleepwalking, meeting the Mountain King, who explains that something foul is afoot — Deatheater Kao has performed a magical spell to awaken long-dead musicians. An amateur wizard, Henry doesn’t understand why he has been chosen to defeat Kao and the walking dead, but he takes on the challenge anyway.
After Edvard Grieg’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King" and Paul Dukas’ “The Sorcerer's Apprentice,” Henry uses magical spells, like “Oh me nerves-us, ya got me drove-us” and “Yes-us by-us” to banish the zombies, his success bringing us to a personal favourite part of the show — a medley of theme songs, from classic films such as “Jaws” and “Psycho,” followed by Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” and Danny Elfman’s “This is Halloween” from “The Nightmare Before Christmas.”
The show paused for a few moments to crown the evening’s costume contest winner — a very young Colonel Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame.
Upon resumption of the concert, the audience added their own percussion to “The Addams Family” theme song, finishing off the night by getting up and dancing to Bobby Pickett’s “The Monster Mash” — a fitting ending for the Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra’s surely-to-be first annual Halloween Spooktacular.
Twitter: @WendyRose709
