Hello all,
Berkeley Opera's L'Enfant et les Sortileges (by Ravel) is opening May 3 at
8pm and continues May 7 at 7;30 pm, May 9 at 8pm and May 11 at 2:00 pm at
the Julia Morgan Center for the Arts in Berkeley (2640 College Ave.) For
tickets and more info go to http://berkeleyopera.org/season.html#BLENFANT
Magical Moonshine's Valerie and Michael have made the puppets under the
artistic vision of Ariel Parkinson, and will perform them in the opera. We
are in rehearsals now, and the singers are fantastic, the music is wonderful
(it is a double bill with Bartok's Blubeard's Castle which we have not heard
or seen as we have been so busy on our own L'Enfant.) The boys singing the
lead role are wonderful as well, and it looks like this will be a memorable
and very enjoyable production.
While a story about a child, it is not necessarily an opera for children.
In L'Enfant (sung in French with English supertitles) a young boy has a
temper tantrum in his room, ripping wall paper, breaking the grandfather
clock and teapot and teacup and basically wreaking havoc. Suddenly
everything comes to life and begins to hound the poor lad, eventually
filling him with remorse for what he has done, but when he thinks he has
finally found some peace in his garden, all of the animals and even the
trees that he has "misused" come to chastise him further. Finally he learns
that he has a power and he must use it with wisdom and compassion.
The Julia Morgan Theatre is a small and intimate theatre making it a very
exciting venue for opera. We hope some of you get the opportunity to enjoy
what promises to be a lovely cultural event.

--
Michael & Valerie Nelson