Saturday in Newark felt like the North Pole. Not only was it freezing cold, but NJPAC served as a sort of Santa’s Village for the day, serving up two festive classical Christmas extravaganzas.
The first was the New Jersey Symphony’s “Elf in Concert.” John Favreau’s 2003 film is often cited as one of the best recent Hollywood Christmas films. It spawned a Broadway musical, an animated NBC special and even a video game. John Debney’s soundtrack is rarely cited as one of the film’s main strengths (that honor usually is saved for Will Farrell’s manic, man-child performance as the titular elf, Buddy).
But as heard on Saturday in NJPAC’s Prudential Hall, the New Jersey Symphony’s playing of Debney’s score — under the baton of conductor Connor Gray Covington — made it clear how central orchestral music is to the movie’s success. Debney’s score is never daring or experimental, but it deftly balances the film’s oddball mix of comedy, charm and holiday sentiment. He uses sleigh bells and choral music to gently evoke the Christmas season, but effectively pivots to more conventional comic underscoring to let Farrell’s many silent antics shine. The music as he downs an entire two-liter bottle of Coke being a perfect example. Also key is how Debney lets certain bits stand alone, like when Buddy makes the elevator buttons of the Empire State Building light up like a Christmas tree.
It is worth noting that watching this movie on a big screen with a full audience of more than 1,700 people on Saturday was as much a part of the magic as live music. “Elf” was made by New Line Cinema, which makes it a Warner Bros Movie. Just 24 hours before the NJPAC screening, Netflix announced it had a deal to acquire the iconic, century-old movie studio. Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos infamously said in an interview earlier this year, “for movie theaters, for the communal experience… it’s an outmoded idea.” But to see the many fans who showed up in “Elf” costumes and t-shirts and laughed, cheered and teared up with their fellow Garden State citizens on Saturday, it would seem like seeing classic movies on a big screen, surrounded by strangers — and with a live orchestra — is very much in-season.
Next door to “Elf,” in NJPAC’s smaller Victoria Theatre, a very different musical Christmas concert took place later that day. The choral group, Chanticleer, performed their “A Chanticleer Christmas,” featuring Christmas carols new and old.
They opened with a Gregorian chant from about 500 years ago, the twelve singers entering the stage two-by-two. Their newest piece was written this year, an elegant triptych of choral music by contemporary British composer, Joanna Marsh. It was called “Winter’s Garden,” and each of the three passages ended with an unexpected vocal flourish.
They sang acapella versions of staples like “O Come All Ye Faithful” and a moving encore of “Silent Night.” But like at their Princeton concert last year, their medley of American spirituals was the real standout. They closed the concert with a stirring rendition of “Go Tell it on the Mountain,” a song so popular and widely heard that I long forgotten it had anything to do with Christmas. Hearing the rich, clear voices of Chanticleer sing about the annunciation, “that Jesus Christ was born,” was a reminder of how simple songs can communicate so much, on so many levels.
Or as Will Ferrell’s Buddy the Elf says, “singing is just like talking, except it’s louder, longer and you move your voice up and down.” Chanticleer moves their voices up and down like nobody else.
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