Center City’s former Macy’s building will be ‘Home for the Holidays’ one more time

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Opera Philadelphia is inviting the city to come “Home for the Holidays,” which in this case is the brass eagle inside the vacant Grand Court of the former Macy’s department store in Center City.

The holiday-themed concert on Dec. 2 will feature the Opera Philadelphia Orchestra and its chorus accompanied by the Wanamaker pipe organ along with two soloists: soprano and Philadelphia native Leah Hawkins and countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo, who is also president and director of Opera Philadelphia.

“It’ll be a great holiday concert including ‘(There’s No Place Like) Home for the Holidays’ and other popular songs, and of course classical things that have holiday connections,” Costanzo said. “As well as excerpts from David Ludwig’s ‘Hanukkah Cantata,’ which is fantastic. There’ll be a big surprise at the end that has special resonance there.”

The performance will include department store-worthy holiday decorations and a projection-mapping light display by 10th Floor Productions.

The concert is a co-production of WHYY-TV, which will tape the performance for a broadcast Dec. 23.

The “Home for the Holidays” performance is in addition to the Wanamaker Light Show, a holiday story narrated by Julie Andrews and animated with 10,000 LED lights on the Grand Court’s wall. Visit Philadelphia has coordinated the return of the longtime Philadelphia tradition from Nov. 28 through Dec. 24.

The Wanamaker Light Show will not return in 2026 or 2027 due to planned renovations to the Wanamaker Building.

Macy’s vacated the Wanamaker Building in March, which allowed Opera Philadelphia to occupy the space this fall for pop-up programming, called “Pipe Up!,” which so far has included a performance by opera tenor Larry Brownlee, screenings of silent horror films on Halloween accompanied by organ music and a convergence of regional youth choirs.

This week, Opera Philadelphia’s composer-in-residence Nathalie Joachim will perform excerpts from her still-unfinished opera, “Le présent éternel.”

That’s “part of what I love about Wanamakers being able to present these one-off concerts,” Costanzo said. “There’s a lot of things that we can do which are really exciting around this extracurricular programming, like holiday programming, without having to mount an entire opera.”

Opera Philadelphia’s arrangement with property developer TF Cornerstone expires at the end of the calendar year. Costanzo hopes to come to a new agreement to continue programs in the space after TF Cornerstone transforms the building into its next life as a mixed-use space of retail, offices and apartments.

“There’s a lot of factors in play but we’re certainly in discussions with the developer TF Cornerstone about how we might be a part of the future of the building,” Costanzo said.