L’enfant et les sortilèges – VOPERA

VOPERA or The Virtual Opera Project teamed up with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the Concordia Foundation to bring us this ingenious lockdown version of Maurice Ravel’s wonderful children’s opera, L’enfant et les sortilèges.

The libretto by Colette tells the story of a naughty child who destroys the items in their room during a tantrum causing them to come to life and sing about their ill-treatment. The child then goes outside where they are shunned by all the animals they have hurt in the past. The happy ending comes when the animals help the child to return home to their mother after the child shows kindness by helping an injured animal.

The Virtual Opera Project have used a variety of methods to make sure this project could come to fruition whilst abiding by government restrictions. It includes creating a specially reduced score for just 27 socially distanced musicians and recording the singers in their own homes and projecting their heads onto drawings of the characters! It’s great to see that they have also included a newly commissioned Mandarin libretto by Victor Fong for the Tea-Set scene.

You can find out more about VOPERA and their L’enfant et les sortilèges project on the VOPERA20 website.