“It’s been more than two decades now that orchestras have been experimenting with the live-to-screen experience,” writes Peter Dobrin in Friday’s (10/25) Philadelphia Inquirer. “There’s no question that the Philly Pops cut the average age of its audience by more than half Thursday night with its live-to-screen foray at the Met Philadelphia. I don’t know who was more cute, the date-night Skellingtons and Sallys who came costumed to kill, or the 4-year-old … air-conducting to the closing-credits music.… Finding yourself in a large room surrounded by hundreds of others who share your passion is an increasingly rare pleasure in our anti-social age of social media. Tim Burton’s stop-animation classic The Nightmare Before Christmas has had a particularly ardent fan base since its release in 1993…. [Composer Danny] Elfman’s sweet-sad harmonic progressions and Broadway-esque vocals are a sophisticated mix of influences…. It’s kind of delicious that he is able to send so many listeners on their way singing the first four notes of the Dies Irae without them knowing it (‘mak-ing-Christ-mas’).… Most of the audience stayed through the end of the closing-credits music, and they applauded at the appearance of Danny Elfman’s name on the screen.”
Posted October 31, 2019
In photo: The Philly Pops performance of The Nightmare Before Christmas, conducted by Stuart Chafetz at the Met Philadelphia last weekend. Bachrach Photography
