Conductor Conversation: Anthony Parnther on Disney's "Mary Poppins in Concert Live to Film"

Remarkably versatile, conductor Anthony Parnther goes especially deep with orchestral music for films.

The music critic at the LA Times recently described Anthony Parnther, who will lead the Lyric Opera Orchestra in Disney’s Mary Poppins in Concert Live to Film, as “the quintessential L.A. musician.” That expansive honorific is meant to capture the fact that a top working conductor on the West Coast today needs jaw-dropping versatility — the ability to move, as Parnther does, from the Hollywood Bowl to a film recording studio to a small gallery, and back again.

Sometimes, Parnther even leaves his baton at home; he is, astonishingly, a world-class bassoon player. He is, as Tony Scott-Green of the Chicago chapter of the Society of Composers and Lyricists puts it, a “first-call guy,” ready for whatever the project calls for.

Still, it’s fair to say that the 44-year-old has a specialization. He has conducted or performed on more than 1,000 movie scores, many of them major hits such as Avatar: The Way of Water, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Disney’s Encanto, Sinners, and Tenet, and even the Oscar- and Grammy-winning soundtrack to Oppenheimer. He played in the orchestra for the three most recent Star Wars franchise films — which must have been a kind of dream come true: Growing up, he recently told Alex Ross of The New Yorker, music meant for him the echo in his mind of those indelible John Williams scores.

Parnther studied conducting at Yale. It’s not uncommon for him to move, in the space of a week, from a Shostakovich symphony to Carlos Simon’s “Elegy: A Cry From the Grave,” a shortform meditation on the deaths of Black men at the hands of the police, to the West Coast premiere of Anne Leilehua Lanzilotti’s “with eyes the color of time,” a finalist for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in music — not to mention a rehearsal with the San Bernardino Symphony, where he is currently music director. But his appreciation of lighter fare — and of its demands for careful attention — holds fast.

We spoke with him in advance of his Lyric debut, about the special pleasures of the award-winning score for Mary Poppins.

What stands out to you about the Sherman Brothers’ Mary Poppins score?

I was in line at the TSA PreCheck at the Los Angeles airport recently, and in front of me was a family with two small children. One was an infant; the other was a 3- or 4-year-old boy, blissfully and repeatedly singing “Supercalifragilistic” (to the best of his ability). What stands out to me most of all about the Sherman Brothers’ score is how timeless and relevant the music has remained, even 60 years later. 

Many audiences know this music by heart. How do you bring a spark to such a familiar score in performance?

The Sherman Brothers injected so much color and vigor into their score for Mary Poppins, and it is merely my quest as the conductor to bring that freshness and energy to life in real time alongside the great musicians of the Lyric Opera Orchestra. 

The music moves between lighthearted songs and more emotional moments. How do you shape those shifts during the film?

I merely have to shape them as the Sherman Brothers would have wanted, and simultaneously keep the music perfectly synched with the picture. Between the two, I’ll have my hands full for sure! 

You’ve conducted many film scores. What’s distinctive about working with a classic studio-era musical like Mary Poppins?

There is something truly distinct and magical about a score that is handwritten and handcrafted the old-fashioned way, as opposed to the majority of contemporary scores, which are written in some fashion on computers. 

These performances mark your debut with the Lyric Opera Orchestra. What excites you about collaborating with this ensemble on this score?

I first saw one of my vocal heroes, the great American bass, Samuel Ramey, command the role of Méphistophélès at Lyric Opera of Chicago in the late 1990’s. Maestro György Ráth conducted. It’s a performance that is still etched into my memory all these years later. It’s quite the full circle to return to Lyric 27 years later to conduct, in any capacity. I’m sure there are still some musicians from that era who will be with me for this performance. 

What do you hope audiences, especially families, experience when they hear this music performed live in the opera house?

I must assume that most of the audience members are already familiar with Mary Poppins and have seen it before coming to our special live-to-picture performance. My hope is for them to witness and appreciate the beauty and power of a live orchestra performing this score, up close and in person.