The Snowman performance at Davies Hall with the San Francisco Symphony last night brought laughter and singing from the adults and children who came to see the charming and playful English animated silent film accompanied by the orchestra and Pacific Boychoir live on stage. The Pacific Boychoir, directed by a preppy and reserved Kevin Fox, surpised and delighted with their rendition of All I Want for Christmas is a Hippopotamus. The second performance is tonight, Saturday, December third and then it will be gone like the melted Snowman himself.
Tonight the symphony offers a $20 Hayes Valley Block Party special for the ticket price. Details are on the website.
Here are clips of the film which you may also see on the symphony website: The Snowman.
The Snowman story does have a sense of loss at the end of the whimsicality, mischief and adventure. The English just have a need to be Dickensian but the film does make an adult feel like a kid again and that’s heartwarming and joyful.
It seems the original film has David Bowie as the boy James and Raymond Briggs, the writer of the book, as the older James, bookending the animation. The symphony shows only the animation for the Christmas performance.
The orchestra played some favorites as they did last year including A Christmas Festival, Carol of the Bells and Sleigh Ride, followed by rousing movements from The Nutcracker. The charismatic and good humored Cabrero filled the hall the second half with singing by the biggest chorus ever as he called it, with traditional Christmas carols for the sing-along finale, with Frosty the Snowman, Santa Claus is Coming to Town, Jingle Bells and a lively Rudolph, the Red-nosed Reindeer.
This year Davies hosts the event for two nights instead of one as last year, with the second one this evening and children seventeen and under get fifty percent off the ticket price. There were plenty of seats left last night.
The hall has the traditional collection of real Christmas trees decorated by children who hand-crafted their ornaments, pictures in the slideshow left. An older gentleman, probably the grandfather, pinched off a few needles and rolled them between his finger and thumb with satisfaction, saying to his family, they are real trees. Indeed, the children posing next to the trees could smell the fresh scent.
The San Francisco SPCA raised it’s customary tree with ornaments like big bows with a picture of a happy dog face or cat at the center. The tree just needed some playful dogs and cats under it, tempted by the colorful glass balls with their own pictures inside.
Another charmer was the tree decorated by children in the Tenderloin, vibrantly painted round pie tins dangling and shining under the Christmas tree lights.
Gingerbread men decorated with button eyes and ribbon scarves glued to foil canvases hung from another tree. I wish I could have purchased one, don’t any of these get stolen?
To help you prepare for tonight’s performance, here are the comic lyrics to be sung by the Pacific Boychoir, also immortalized by Shirley Temple and a claymation hippo on Youtube.
Claymation hippo singing: http://youtu.be/7oOzszFIBcE
Lyrics link: Hippopotamus
I want a hippopotamus for Christmas
Only a hippopotamus will do
Don't want a doll, no dinky Tinker Toy
I want a hippopotamus to play with and enjoy
I want a hippopotamus for Christmas
I don't think Santa Claus will mind, do you?
He won't have to use our dirty chimney flue
Just bring him through the front door, that's the easy thing to do
I can see me now on Christmas morning, creeping down the stairs
Oh what joy and what surprise when I open up my eyes
To see a hippo hero standing there
I want a hippopotamus for Christmas
Only a hippopotamus will do
No crocodiles, no rhinoceroses
I only like hippopotamuses
And hippopotamuses like me too
Mom says the hippo would eat me up, but then
Teacher says a hippo is a vegeterian
There's lots of room for him in our two-car garage
I'd feed him there and wash him there and give him his massage
I can see me now on Christmas morning, creeping down the stairs
Oh what joy and what surprise when I open up my eyes
To see a hippo hero standing there
I want a hippopotamus for Christmas
Only a hippopotamus will do
No crocodiles or rhinoceroseses
I only like hippopotamuseses
And hippopotamuses like me too!
Tickets cost from $27 to $57 and half price for children under seventeen.
Davies Symphony Hall is at 201 Van Ness Avenuein CivicCenter, San Francisco.
Davies and other venues about town host wonderful upscale Christmas events. Click here: Christmas events 2011.
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