Opera is not something that’s usually presented as ‘child friendly’.
But that’s what Opera Up Close did when they visited Stroud this month as part of the town’s first Children’s Festival.
Ulla’s Odyssey told the tale of 14-year-old Ulla’s attempt to sail around the globe with only her cat for company.
This was an exciting addition to the first Children’s Festival programme, and it was thanks to the imagination of the Stroud Arts Festival team that opera was brought to the Cotswold Playhouse.
Inspired by the mythical adventures depicted in Homer’s Odyssey, she encountered various deities and monsters, based on the Greek epic but given a modern twist.
Cy-ops for instance, rather than Cyclops, is a one-eyed monster who ensnares smugglers. Ulla defeats him with a carefully aimed Brussell sprout.
This didn’t pander to, or dumb down for children. The music was complex and engaging . I loved the combination of voices singing in harmony in particular, and especially the rich tones of the Goddess of the Sea, Flora McIntosh.
Ironically, for a tale about an epic voyage, the staging felt static. Ulla felt confined to the bow of her boat, and cramped by the other singers around her, and the children, and I, would have enjoyed more dynamism.
It was a privilege and a rare opportunity for children to hear real quality opera, to hear epic and rich voices performing live and unamplified is a rare treat – and for most of the audience this would no doubt be the first time they had heard real opera singers.
But it was also a complex trick to pull off.
This wasn’t stereotypical classical opera, with divas and high intensity emotion. It was a modern adventure tale.
But perhaps that’s where its problem lies. Opera to me is about conveying an emotional language through music, rather than simply retelling an adventure, and finding the emotional connection with a young audience isn’t easy.
Victoria Temple
