United States ‘Meet Me at the Eagle’ – Various: Soloists, Opera Philadelphia Chorus, Opera Philadelphia Orchestra Brass / Elizabeth Braden (conductor). The Wanamaker Building, Philadelphia, 7.9.2025. (RP)
‘Climb Every Mountain’ from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music summed it up perfectly. The dream of which countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo and the Opera Philadelphia Chorus sang had come true – to hear the sound of the Wanamaker Organ reverberating once again throughout the Grand Court of The Wanamaker Building. Six months earlier, the organ’s fate was uncertain when Macy’s closed, leaving the space vacant.
With its 28,482 pipes, the organ is the largest fully functional one in the world. Originally built for the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, John Wanamaker, known as a ‘pioneer of marketing,’ bought it for his flagship department store. The behemoth was shipped from St. Louis to Philadelphia in thirteen railroad cars. Ever eager for a publicity coup, Wanamaker and his son Rodman arranged for the first notes of the organ to be played in the store on 22 June 1911, at the exact moment King George V was crowned in Westminster Abbey in London.
The original organ had over 10,000 pipes, but by 1930 it was enlarged to its present size. It would have been even bigger but for the death in 1928 of Rodman Wanamaker. His instructions to the design team were to ‘use everything you ever dreamed about’, with no regard to budget. World-renowned organists, including Marcel Dupré, Louis Vierne and Nadia Boulanger, performed concerts on the organ.
In addition to daily recitals, in its heyday Wanamaker’s sponsored free concerts which drew audiences of as many as 15,000 people. The Philadelphia Orchestra, with Leopold Stokowski conducting, first performed in the Grand Court in 1919 and would return in 2008. In 1956, Wanamaker’s unveiled a Christmas Light Show, which became a popular annual event in which the organ played a starring role.
The Wanamaker Organ remained a vital part of Philadelphia’s cultural scene through the successive sales of the Wanamaker’s chain and the Philadelphia store, which began in the 1970s. Various department stores occupied the building, which had been reduced over the years from nine to three floors of retail space, with Macy’s arriving in 2006. On 9 January 2025, Macy’s announced that the Philadelphia store would close in March 2025. There was an all-day series of organ concerts on 22 March 2025, with the store closing the following day.
The extent to which Philadelphians treasure the Wanamaker Organ and the store’s holiday traditions was evidenced by the speed at which plans to preserve them materialized. In July, the Philadelphia Visitor Center and TF Cornerstone, which now owns the building, announced that the Christmas light show would return in December with Opera Philadelphia programming a series of events entitled ‘Pipe Up!’ in the Grand Court from September through December.
Philadelphia is the second-largest performing arts center in America, only bested by New York. ‘Pipe Up!’ will mine that rich diversity by bringing opera, dance, theater, cabaret and visual art to the Grand Court. The opening concert of the series on 7 September was entitled ‘Meet Me at the Eagle’, a reference to the giant bronze statue of an eagle in the center of the Grand Court that served as a meeting place for generations of Philadelphians.
Costanzo, who became General Director and President of Opera Philadelphia in June 2024, hosted the event. There were remarks by politicians, civic leaders and a TF Cornerstone representative, who worked to make this remarkable private-public endeavor possible, but the performing arts were at the heart of ‘Meet Me at the Eagle’. The first music heard was Gigout’s ‘Grand choeur dialogué’ performed by Peter Richard Conte, who has been the Wanamaker Grand Court Organist since 1989, and brass players from the Opera Philadelphia Orchestra. It is a magnificent, triumphant piece that showcased both the organ at its most majestic and the superb acoustics of the Grand Court, now stripped bare of all the wares and trappings of a department store.
Later in the concert, the organ was heard to its best advantage in Conte’s arrangement of the Final Trio from Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier. Conte drew the most subtle of string sounds and delicate colors from the instrument to capture the bittersweet emotions expressed in the opera’s finale. He ended it with a display of the vibrant orchestral sound for which the organ is noted.
The Opera Philadelphia Chorus, conducted by Elizabeth Braden, contributed a full-voiced, dramatic ‘O Fortuna’ from Orff’s Carmina Burana. The chorus was also featured in ‘Things Both Strange and True’ from David Hertzberg’s The Wake World, premiered by Opera Philadelphia in 2017 (it was awarded the Music Critics Association of North America Award for Best New Opera). Conte revealed more of the phenomenal range of colors and textures that he can draw from the organ in his contributions to both pieces.
Besides his role as emcee, Costanzo delivered a heroic rendition of ‘Or la tromba’ from Handel’s Rinaldo. The sound of trumpets, played by Brian Kuszyk and Robert Skoniczin, echoed triumphantly throughout the Grand Court. Soprano Lindsey Reynolds shined in Juliet’s Waltz from Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette. Soprano Emilie Kealani and tenor Minghao Liu displayed radiant, flexible, lyrical voices in ‘Nel suo divin sembiante’ from Rossini’s Il viaggio a Reims, which begins Opera Philadelphia’s season on 19 September.
Drag performer and classically trained vocalist Cookie Diorio from the Bearded Ladies Cabaret, who also sings with the Opera Philadelphia Chorus, ruled over the Grand Court, performing a medley of Lehár’s ‘Meine Lippen sie küssen so heiss’ and Beyoncé’s ‘Ego’. It was hard to imagine that an aria from a Viennese opera could blend as seamlessly with a bump jazz, soul and pop-infused hit song as they did in Diorio’s performance.
Just as remarkable was MK Korbisch from FringeArts in ‘Minky Rod’. He displayed poise, agility, droll wit and an incredible sense of balance while contorting himself on a stationary bike to English singer-songwriter Dido’s ‘White Flag’. Equally impressive contributions came from BalletX. The most colorful and witty was ‘Macaroni’ with choreography by Loughlan Prior, set to an original composition by Claire Cowan and performed by Eli Alford and Ben Schwarz.
That line from ‘Climb Every Mountain’ – ‘a dream that can take all the love you can give’ – summed up the past and the future of the Wanamaker Organ. Plan on ‘Meet at the Eagle’ to help make them come true.
Rick Perdian
Featured Image: The Grand Court of The Wanamaker Building © Ray Bailey
Performers: Emilie Kealani (soprano), Lindsey Reynolds (soprano), Anthony Roth Costanzo (countertenor), Minghao Liu (tenor), Cookie Diorio (vocalist), Grant Loehnig (piano), Peter Richard Conte (organ), Ballet X, FringeArts
Program:
‘Grand choeur dialogué’ – Eugène Gigout/Daniel Leavitt
‘O Fortuna’ from Carmina Burana – Carl Orff
‘Je veux vivre’ from Roméo et Juliette – Charles Gounod
‘Fancy Me’ – dance piece to King Floyd’s ‘Groove Me’
‘Or la tromba’ from Rinaldo – George Frideric Handel
‘Things Both Strange and True’ from The Wake World – David Hertzberg
‘Minky Rod’ – performance piece to Dido’s ‘White Flag’
‘Macaroni’ – dance piece to original composition by Claire Cowen
‘Nel suo divin sembiante’ from Il viaggio a Reims – Gioachino Rossini
‘Honey’ – dance piece to Don Shirley’s ‘This Was Nearly Mine’
‘Meine Lippen’ / ‘Ego’ – Franz Lehár and Beyoncé
Final Trio from Der Rosenkavalier – Richard Strauss
‘Climb Every Mountain’ from The Sound of Music – Rogers and Hammerstein