They often work in shadow yet they have the power to shake buildings and drive terror into people’s souls. Is it any wonder that the original Phantom of the Opera was also an organist?
This Halloween the Calgary Organ Festival celebrates one of the instrument’s rising international stars Englishman David Baskeyfield along with his creepiest fictional colleague the Phantom. The latter appears in his 1925 silent movie incarnation as portrayed by Lon Chaney — it’s the original Hollywood monster film at once scarier and stranger than the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical and film adaptations. The screening will feature Baskeyfield performing and improvising the entire soundtrack accompanied by optional shrieks of horror from the audience.
Baskeyfield comes to Calgary with newly burnished credentials having just won the Canadian International Organ Competition in Montreal last week. The 31-year-old organist also won the Richard Bradshaw audience prize while Montreal Gazette critic Arthur Kaptainis singled him out for his “clarity and rhythmic verve” as well as his “dashing red tie and matching socks.”
“He is an incredible talent who is clearly going to be big news” says Neil Cockburn Calgary Organ Festival director and head of organ studies at MRU Conservatory. Baskeyfield’s visit to Calgary is sponsored by the Calgary Society of Organists one of several organizations partnering to present this year’s festival. For The Phantom Baskeyfield improvises a soundtrack from many sources — the organ music of J.S. Bach such as the famous “Toccata and Fugue in D minor” original material and transcriptions of symphonic and operatic music. The film opens with a ballet scene from Charles Gounod’s opera Faust; Baskeyfield’s bouncing accompaniment to the dancers is a giddily surreal pleasure.
The film’s most famous scene which reportedly caused some in the audience to faint from terror is the unmasking of the Phantom by his captive protegé Christine (played by Mary Philbin). Here the Phantom lets down his guard for a moment to play his own composition a new operatic Don Juan for Christine. “Yet listen” says the Phantom as he presses the keys of the Paris Opera’s organ “there sounds an ominous undercurrent of warning.”
Cockburn says the Calgary Organ Festival runs the gamut between worship services major recitals and offbeat events like the silent movie screening. “We try to bridge the church and the concert hall” he adds. Families with young children may want to come to GHOST (Great Halloween Organ SpookTacular) a free variety show at 7:30 p.m. which precedes the silent movie screening at 9 p.m. (The silent movie is not suitable for kids under 13.)
Cockburn notes that improvising is nothing new for organists: “It is a huge tradition which goes back probably as long as the instrument has existed.” In the 1920s theatres across the United States and Canada acquired Wurlitzer theatre organs and hearing improvised organ music became an essential part of the cinematic experience. The National Music Centre collection includes several working examples of theatre organs with all their extra sound-effects pedals and knobs.
On Halloween Cockburn hopes the audience comes away with spines suitably chilled. They might also leave with a greater admiration and respect (if not fear) for this greatest of instruments and its phantom-like operators.
THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA featuring live organ from David Baskeyfield screens at Knox United Church on Friday October 31.
