The Philadelphia Orchestra’s ‘Peter and the Wolf’ is a gift to children and adults alike

Stagecraft and technology being what they are these days, one can imagine any number of ways Peter and the Wolf could be souped up. If the key to audience-building is children, Prokofiev’s children’s classic would seem to be the perfect chance to engage them with eye-popping visuals.

But the Philadelphia Orchestra is smart enough to let the piece speak for itself.

It also knows you don’t mess with success. Saturday morning in Marian Anderson Hall marked the 10th time the orchestra has presented the piece with actor-narrator Michael Boudewyns over nearly two decades, and no one should ever touch a hair on this modest production’s furry little head. In its simplicity and humor, here is one of those rare, perfect things in this world.

Saturday’s concert was also, judging from an audience whose ages looked to span from 2 years old to 80, a powerful generational bridge. Surely there were a few grandparents in the hall who remember going to these Philadelphia Orchestra family concerts with Leopold Stokowski on the podium.

The series continues in March with another on-ramp to classical music: Britten’s dazzling The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra.

Prokofiev’s piece — which is about to turn 90 years old — can be frightening in some productions; the French horns are as menacing as the fang-bearing wolf they depict. But Boudewyns has a grab bag of tricks so disarming that the scare factor practically disappears.

His props are drawn from household items: the duck is a feather duster, the bird a diaphanous, darting, bright yellow swatch of fabric. Who can’t help but laugh at a gun represented by a toilet plunger? Boudewyns narrates while choreographing the action in response to the changing character of the music and arc of the story. For an audience growing up in the digital thicket, here was a bright clearing. Nothing beats a good story, enticingly told and heightened by a great score.

Naomi Woo, the orchestra’s assistant conductor, was visually engaging, leading the work and three others, including a truncated version of the first movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5. These concerts are another reminder of the deep bench of talent within the orchestra beyond the principal chairs. In the Prokofiev, that meant Patrick Williams’s glossy flute sound as the bird; clarinetist Samuel Caviezel as the bouncy cat; oboist Peter Smith’s poignant duck; and the appropriately lumbering (but polished) grandfather emanating from the bassoon of Mark Gigliotti.

All deserved special recognition, and Woo gave the players bows, but no orchestra roster was published in the concert’s Playbill (even though the usual lists of board, staff and oodles of donors were included).

One of the unspoken truths of all art is that its effect on people is ultimately unknowable. The two children in front of me — one looked three, the other even younger — were ostensibly too small to be there, and yet there’s no way of knowing what they were absorbing. The power of these concerts is in being in the presence of this orchestra, with that incredible sound. No other kind of ensemble has the same impact. And despite all the squirming and low chattering coming from the next row, there was really only one thought to which I kept returning: what lucky children.

The Philadelphia Orchestra, conductor Naomi Woo and actor Michael Boudewyns perform Britten’s “The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra,” March 14, 11:30 a.m., Marian Anderson Hall, Broad and Spruce Sts. Tickets $29-$66. ensembleartsphilly.org, 215-893-1999.