The Little Sweep in the Prokofiev Hall of Mariisnky Theatre, the 10th of December, 2017

My second children’s opera (again in Prokojfev Hall) of the weekend was Benjamin Britten’s “The Little Sweep”. The opera is situated in 19^th century England and it tells about Sam, whom his parents have sold as an apprentice to a chimney sweeper. Sam is forced to climb up his first chimney, gets stuck and the children of the house help him out. After various comical situations the children – with the help of the nanny – help him escape.

The music in the opera is rather versatile. There are some really modern bits and then there are some embracing, perky songs. Though, I do have to say there were not very memorable. The accompaniment was this time, too, a piano, but played four-handed. From the point of view of the music this opera was perhaps a bit more demanding for children and a few left the opera before the end (or perhaps the beginning of the opera was a bit too frightening for the smallest children).

Even this opera had some of the same singers I had already heard earlier the same weekend. The singer of Fedora, Tatiana Starkova, sung the role of the nanny. Shona Chibirov was this time the son of the chimney sweeper Clem and Roman Sagdiev was singing his third opera this weekend in the role of Johnny Crome. The best performance was made by Ekaterina Bondarenko who sang the role of Mrs Baggot.

The set design was rather simple (just a few screens and some small objects), but a very versatile box stood in the middle of the stage. It served in various functions: as a chimney, a toy cupboard, travelling trunk, coach. That box certainly proved that not everything needs to be super complicated to work. And the children definitely saw the magic of the box, because after the opera some of the crawled to the box to study its interior.