The Fort Worth Symphony is putting on a puppet show. Wait, what?
Yes, it’s true, and it’ll enliven Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf with large-scale puppets and illustrations while the orchestra plays onstage.
Three bumbling fools will narrate the tale and assemble illustrations to create what one troupe leader describes as “somewhere between a pop-up book and a jigsaw puzzle.”
“There’s beauty in the illustrations that are being created, and there’s comedy in the process of setting it up,” says Judd Palmer, co-founder and co-artistic director of the Old Trout Puppet Workshop, based in Alberta, Canada.
The story they’re telling is simple. The boy Peter is in the meadow with his animal friends, a bird and a duck. His grandfather drags him home, warning of wolves. After a wolf does appear — and swallows the duck whole — Peter snares it with the help of the bird, and leads it to a zoo.
With the goal of introducing members of the orchestra to kids, Prokofiev paired different instruments with different characters: The strings represent Peter, the bassoon his grandfather, the horns the wolf and so on.
Despite the childish plot, Palmer says the show is for adults, too.
“It’s quite funny … but it’s also visually arresting. These are hand-painted, hand-drawn enormous illustrations that are quite evocative. And so it’s got a level of just pure gonzo fun, and it’s got a level of illustrative beauty. At the same time it’s boisterous and entertaining, it also has a certain sophistication.”
Supporting the family-friendly theme, the program, led by music director Robert Spano, opens with Act II from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker.
The performances will further Spano’s mission of presenting visually engaging musical productions. Last season included a semi-staged concert version of Haydn’s Creation with scrims and projected images and a Stravinsky Firebird with 12 dancers from Texas Ballet Theater.
As with previous programs, the aim is to complement, not detract from, the music.
“We never want to get in the way of the music,” Palmer says. “That’s an important part of doing a performance with an orchestra.
But also I think that orchestras these days are interested in ideas of how to expand their scope or multimedia-ize their process. Because it’s an opportunity to expand on what that art form can mean.”
Details
7:30 p.m. Oct. 20 and 21, 2 p.m. Oct. 22 at Bass Performance Hall, Fourth and Commerce, Fort Worth. $26 to $99. 817-665-6000, fwsymphony.org.
