When The Night Wind Howls

This song is taken from the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta Ruddigore, or the Witch’s Curse. This delightful operetta features (among other things) a roomful of portraits of ghostly noble ancestors – who actually step out of their picture frames and come to life! The song that follows – “When the night wind howls” – is sung by the lead ghost (Sir Roderic Murgatroyd). It describes ghostly revels amidst the graveyard “at midnight – “the dead of the night’s high noon.”