L’enfant et les sortilèges

French composer Maurice Ravel’s one-act fantasy opera about the enchanted dreams of a naughty child first appeared in 1925 and immediately established itself as one of the most delightful and gorgeous pieces of theatrical music ever written and a classic of 20^th century opera.

Lasting well under an hour and written to a sparkling and humorous text by the great Colette (most famous for her scandalous novels, Chéri and Gigi, both wonderfully adapted as movies), L’enfant takes us into a magical world of wild imagination, where children’s book illustrations, wallpaper printed images, a China doll, a teapot, an armchair, a caged squirrel and a host of other extraordinary characters all come to life, each one singing their own music, and each music dazzlingly beguiling and unexpected.

Ravel was one of the greatest orchestrators of all time, and the orchestral music of L’enfant is peerless and utterly bewitching; or, as one famous modern conductor put it: ‘This score is perfect.’

The orchestra conjures up the sounds of a crackling fire, wind in the trees, frogs hopping in and out of a garden pond, bats and owls in the darkness of a moonlit night, and two cats singing a love-song. And it is the orchestra which brings to life the inner feelings of the small child at the center of the story: his fury, his longing, his fear and his wicked sense of humor.

This is an opera which has inspired responses from many great artists, including Maurice Sendak (Where the wild things are) and David Hockney. In our San Diego semi-staging, we will bring Ravel’s story to the stage of the Jacobs Music Center in our own way, creating visual images which support and make delightful the story of this opera, as well as fitting the splendid playfulness of the gorgeous and newly restored interior of our hall, but always leaving the music to come first, to charm our eyes and touch our human hearts.

 

Gerard McBurney

24 March 2025