| The Return of the Phantom: Reviving a Penn Halloween Tradition |
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October 20, 2009,
Volume 56, No. 08
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Celebrate the return of a classic Penn Halloween tradition! Experience The Phantom of the Opera, the 1925 silent film starring Lon Chaney, with live accompaniment by Peter Edwin Krasinski on the 12,000 pipe legendary Curtis Organ. Irvine’s balcony houses the eleventh-largest pipe organ in the world, the Curtis Organ, which was built for the Sesquicentennial Exhibition in 1926, and donated to the University of Pennsylvania in 1928.
Mr. Krasinski—a conductor, organist and musical educator—is known as “an exciting, accomplished and elegant accompanist of silent film” who has previously accompanied three consecutive performances of Phantom in one evening to standing room only crowds at a convention of the International Organ Builders Society.
For the first time since 1996, this fright-film screening will once again take place at Irvine Auditorium. On Friday, October 30 there will be two shows, at noon and 7:30 p.m. This calorie-free treat is free and open to the public; seating is limited. The event is sponsored by Perelman Quadrangle.
For 25 years, the Phantom haunted Irvine, until the building’s renovations in 1997. During those years, the proceeds went to the Organ Restoration Fund. Then, in 1998, the Phantom was found in a new venue—the Penn Museum, while Irvine’s renovations were underway.
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