The Dallas Symphony Orchestra follows the yellow brick road this weekend in its performance of the full score of the “The Wizard of Oz” as the film is projected on a screen above the orchestra. It will play the original score note for note alongside the original voice audio.
The Meyerson Symphony Center will be transformed into the Emerald City and the Land of Oz for the weekend. Two of the munchkins from the original film will also join the orchestra. Margaret Pellegrini held two roles in the 1939 film including “one of the Sleepy Heads in the bird’s nest, and also one of the gals who wore a flower pot hat.” Mickey Carroll played the town crier, Munchkin soldier, one of the fiddlers and escorted Dorothy down the yellow brick road toward Emerald City.
Richard Kaufman will conduct this weekend’s performance. According to his biography, Kaufman “has devoted much of his musical life to conducting and supervising music for film and television productions.” Richard joined the music department of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios in 1984 as music coordinator, and for the next 18 years supervised music for all MGM television projects. In 1993, Kaufman received a Grammy in the category of Best Pop Instrumental Performance for a recording he conducted with the Nuremberg Symphony.
“The Wizard of Oz” was directed by Victor Fleming and was based on the 1900 children’s novel “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” by L. Frank Baum. Music and lyrics were written by Harold Arlen and E.Y. “Yip” Harburg, who won the Academy Award for Best Song for “Over the Rainbow.” This weekend’s performance by the DSO isn’t the first of its kind. The film screening with the live orchestra accompaniment has been performed by symphonies including the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.
The performance, which is part of the Deloitte Pops Series, will run Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2:30 p.m. The opening night of the performance is sold out and tickets for Saturday and Sunday are limited.
