Kids going to go hear the Detroit Symphony Orchestra live at Orchestra Hall is a thing that still happens. Kids going to the Detroit Opera House to hear the Detroit Opera is apparently also a thing that happens, but I hadn’t been aware of it until a couple of weeks ago that I looked it up.
Benjamin Britten’s orchestral composition titled Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra was clearly meant for children, though adults certainly enjoy that music with or without the boy’s narration. I definitely recommend it for music composition students at the university level.
I’m very vaguely remembering attending a university production of an opera meant for children in which a salamander travels to València to learn to play the violin, then goes to Torino to learn to play the trombone. The opera clearly serves a purpose similar to that of Britten’s Guide.
The salamander’s name must start with S, because clearly the librettist loves alliteration. What the hell is the title of that opera? Now I’m not even sure that’s an actual opera I heard, as my Internet searches are coming up empty and A.I. is not helping one bit. Maybe I dreamt the whole thing up?
What is even an opera that you can take children to? Das Rheingold? No, even though at two hours’ running time it is the shortest music drama of the Ring cycle, it is most definitely not appropriate for children. Fafner kills Fasolt to have the Rhine gold all to himself.
Easier to understand than Cain killing Abel because a noncorporeal being had very strong opinions about material offerings, I suppose, but still not something I’d want young children thinking about. Sorry, kids, I’m not taking you to see Alessandro Scarlatti’s Cain, overo il primo omicidio either.
Fafner himself is killed by Siegfried in Act II of Siegfried. I would definitely understand if children fell asleep during Act I, as the most exciting thing that happens in that hourlong act is that Siegfried reforges the sword Notung. And let’s not even talk about Die Walküre. No wonder Anton Bruckner never wrote an opera, as he wanted a libretto mostly free of immorality, so that ruled out almost every libretto available to him.
But if someone had offered Bruckner a libretto like that of Amahl and the Night Visitors, maybe Bruckner would have written the music. Italian-born American composer Gian Carlo Menotti wrote his own libretto for this story of a young boy who meets the three kings before they make material offerings to the baby Jesus.
This one I know for a fact I really did attend a university production. Although I hadn’t listened to this opera in years, the title of this opera was never buried too deep in my subconscious, unlike the opera about the sarrusophone-playing salamander, if that other opera even exists at all.
Amahl is also a milestone in television history, premiering on Christmas Eve 1951 on NBC, meant specifically as an opera for television. Maybe you can watch the black and white video on Peacock. Here’s a much more recent production, in color, by the Louisiane Opera.
Opera fans with children: which operas, if any, would you take your children to?
