\n<\/p>\n
A lonely schoolboy named Bertil makes a magical friend who goes by Nils in \u201cNils Karlsson D\u00e4umling,\u201d a children\u2019s opera by Thierry Tidrow based on a fairy tale by Astrid Lindgren. Nils teaches Bertil to change his size by singing a spell-like song.<\/p>\n
For contemporary classical composers, writing children\u2019s opera can be similarly transfiguring \u2014 it\u2019s like casting a spell that lets them be both big and small. Artists with highly experimental aesthetics get to embrace their silly sides and reconnect with the childlike urge to create.<\/p>\n
In their work, and especially in opera, composers often feel an \u201cimmense pressure,\u201d Tidrow said in an interview, \u201cto show that you\u2019re being original, that you know everything else that has been done, and that what you\u2019re doing is apart from that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Writing for children, by comparison, can be liberating. As Tidrow often says, \u201cThey haven\u2019t read Adorno.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cNils Karlsson D\u00e4umling,\u201d an unusually mobile children\u2019s opera, is scored for a soprano and a speaking violinist, and can be performed on a set that fits in a van. Partly for that reason, it has been performed more than 300 times since its premiere in 2019. But more sprawling children\u2019s operas are also a regular feature of musical life in Europe. Vienna leads the way: In December, the Vienna State Opera opened a second venue, the Neue Staatsoper \u2014 known by its contracted name, the Nest<\/a> \u2014 dedicated entirely to opera productions for children, families and young adults.<\/p>\n \u201cIt can be stressful being a living composer,\u201d Bogdan Roscic, the State Opera\u2019s general director, said in a phone interview. \u201cAnd writing for children actually is very liberating, I think, simply because one can discover his inner child.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n A new children\u2019s opera by Tidrow, \u201cSagt der Walfisch zum Thunfisch\u201d (\u201cWhat the Whale Told the Tuna\u201d), inaugurated the Nest. His \u201cThe Conference of the Animals\u201d premiered at the Musikverein, also in Vienna, in January and travels to the Philharmonie Luxembourg<\/a> on Saturday. And his \u201cCarnival of Emotions,\u201d a piece for actors, the G\u00fcrzenich Orchestra and 300 schoolchildren, will premiere<\/a> in Cologne, Germany, on March 27.<\/p>\n \u201cNils Karlsson D\u00e4umling\u201d was the first work for children that Tidrow, 38, composed. It was commissioned by the Deutsche Oper am Rhein, which operates in D\u00fcsseldorf and Duisburg, Germany. Tidrow and the director Anselm Dalferth began rehearsals with just the story, a libretto and about 20 pages of Tidrow\u2019s musical sketches, fleshing out the piece over six intensive weeks.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n During that time, Tidrow wrote \u201cmusic every day and every night,\u201d he said, but he also conducted some market research. He and the piece\u2019s violinist, Karin Nakayama, visited local day cares and conducted workshops. Nakayama performed music by Schubert for the children, as well as works by the living composers Adriana H\u00f6lszky and Salvatore Sciarrino<\/a>. The children preferred the weirder, more modern music.<\/p>\n \u201cThree-, 4- and 5-year-olds are really interested in bizarre or out-of-this-world sounds,\u201d Tidrow said. \u201cThat, to them, is much more fascinating than a beautiful melody.\u201d<\/p>\n That lesson is audible in the opera, a sweet and age-appropriate story about how a vivid imagination can ease loneliness. The speech-like violin part, representing Nils, is virtuosic, with a wide variety of unusual sounds. The kaleidoscopic musical material recalls Gyorgy Kurtag\u2019s \u201cKafka-Fragmente,\u201d<\/a> a formidable 20th-century milestone for soprano and violin.<\/p>\n Writing these operas requires adult composers to see the world through children\u2019s eyes \u2014 even when that reminds them of the unpleasant parts of being young. In 2013, Gordon Kampe, a composer and professor at the Hochschule f\u00fcr Musik und Theater Hamburg, wrote \u201cKannst du Pfeifen, Johanna?\u201d (\u201cCan You Whistle, Johanna?\u201d), based on a book by Ulf Stark. In the story, Berra, a young boy who doesn\u2019t have a grandfather, befriends an elderly man named Nils at a retirement home. They become close, but Nils dies in the end. When Kampe read the book to his own daughter, who was then about 5 or 6, at bedtime, he was nervous about broaching the subject of death with her.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n