Margolyes – whose myriad acting credits include playing Professor Sprout in the Harry Potter films and roles on ABC’s Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries and Rake ­– will play the role of the narrator in the show, to be presented with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra under the baton of conductor Nicholas Carter.

Peter and the Wolf, created by Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev in 1936, is a  combination of symphony and storytelling about a boy named Peter and the various animals he meets, each of whom is represented by a particular instrument and musical theme.

In part two of the Festival show, Margolyes – last in Adelaide in 2015 with The Importance of Being Miriam – will narrate Benjamin Britten’s The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra.

Adelaide Festival co-artistic director Rachel Healy says it is a coup to host Margolyes in a concert she describes as a “joyous introduction” to classical music for children and families.

“Part of the genius of both Britten and Prokofiev was their ability to speak directly to generations of children,” Healy says.

“The wit and suspense of Peter and the Wolf and the freshness and fun of Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra derive from clearly etched melody, brightly coloured orchestration and dazzling compositional technique.”

The Adelaide Festival also announced today that the Sydney Theatre Company’s Helpmann-Award-winning production of The Secret River, based on the book by Kate Grenville, will be presented in an open-air performance staged in the Anstey Hill Quarry at Tea Tree Gully.

Adapted for the stage by SA playwright Andrew Bovell and directed by Festival co-artistic director Neil Armfield, it will be the first major theatrical work performed in the quarry since Peter Brook’s The Mahabharata in 1988.

The full 2017 Adelaide Festival program will be announced next month.