I got into BambinO by special permission –
strictly you shouldn’t be allowed to see it unless you have a baby in tow – but
since even our Youth Panel wouldn’t qualify for a show designed for the six to
18-month age group, it might as well be a grandad who went to see it.
What I saw was pretty impressive. It’s an
hour long, almost, with an Act One, interval and then Act Two, and it tells a
complete story, about a little mummy bird who finds she has an egg, which
hatches into a baby that then grows and eventually flies away to make its own
life.
There are two solo singers (Charlotte
Hoather and Timothy Connor) and two instrumentalists (cellist Laura Sergeant
and percussionist Stuart Semple, although both also sing at the beginning and
end, so there you have a complete vocal quartet, too).
The music, by Lliam Paterson, is very
cleverly put together, although his skill with pastiche of baroque and
classical opera is so great you begin to look for the parallels with well-known
works – especially after a duet for two bird people with the words
‘Pu-Pu-Pu-Pu-Pulcino’ at its heart! Heard something similar to that before …
The opening, growing from a peaceful murmur
with the added effect of bird calls, had us entranced from the start.
Especially the babies (14 of them, by my count), who were the most attentive
and responsive audience I’ve ever seen … most of the time.
The singing is mostly in Italian (a little
English, too, I think) but that emphasizes the fact that at this stage in music
appreciation the words don’t matter. It’s about slightly larger-than-life
people in colourful costumes, acting a story and singing as they do it, and
looking and sounding amazing. Which is what grown-up opera is about, too,
really.
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