We’ve still time. Glance into the conservatory adjacent the backstage area where techies and roustabouts prepare for the special effects to make the young believe, for nothing is more magical than what is truly alive: potted roses, potted thorny brambles, potted beanstalks. A silver nutmeg and a golden pear, and a talking nightingale in a cage, and a coppery talking carp in a bowl like a bubble. Is that a real or a costumed dragon? In any case he gives no autographs.

We haven’t time to visit the costumier. A dash past the open door: the crown, the broom, the magic wand, the fur tippets, the toga, the shield, the cloak of many colors, the cloak of invisibility, the cloak of respectability. a hundred thousand cloaks on hangers stretching back like a forest we can almost remember. but we haven’t time; on we dash.

Now back to the hall, and not a moment too soon. Now listen! The orchestra pit is bustling, practicing the traditional clarion call of invocation (once upon a time!) and the flourish of finale, nearly always in a major key (happily ever after!). But if Northrop Frye has taught us to read literature as a seasonal progression — spring comedy, summer romance, autumnal tragedy, and winter satire or irony — once again the fairy tale eludes classification, for it can be all of these at once, and more besides. Midrash, parable, griot’s begats; pourquoi, koan, and cautionary fable.

And between these time-honored flourishes of salve and farewell, we’ll hear the many sounds of a story’s spell. The royal procession: a trumpet voluntary. The afternoon of a faun: a flute masquerading as panpipes. The score may include a glockenspiel-and-sitar cacophony or a maddened piccolo tarantella. It may feature the clicking of bamboo rods and harp glissades to suggest transformations, recipes, revelations. The kettledrum for war. The rattle of aluminum sheeting for jeremiad and storm. The cello for lament.