Where the Wild Things Are/Higglety Pigglety Pop! - An Opera Double Bill by Oliver Knussen

Synopsis

Oliver Knussen changed the parameters of British opera with his two picture-book stage works Where the Wild Things Are and Higglety Pigglety Pop! These colourful and opulent creations were inspired by the drawings of Maurice Sendak, whose deeply-felt stories for children have enchanted generations. Knussen's scores, beautifully complex and yet always touching and involving, are performed by the Britten Sinfonia and a cast of talented, versatile singers. Specially commissioned multimedia stagings by Netia Jones will see singers, orchestra and projections come together in a joyous celebration of these fun, spontaneous and utterly unreal operatic gems.

Our Review:

4 November 2012

“Well, I stayed” declared a small boy on the way out. “You did,” smiled his dad. “All the way through. Good boy.” Duty done. Take the rest of the evening off.

In truth, a good number of parents with children had left – fled? – the Barbican Hall at the midway point of this double bill; and if they had struggled with Where the Wild Things Are, the more easily digestible of these two operas by Oliver Knussen drawn from the picture books of Maurice Sendak, they were probably right to do so. Ryan Wigglesworth, the conductor, hints clearly enough in the programme that neither work is ‘for children’, although he ducks the issue of just who the target audience might be. The answer, I think, is that they’re for those of us who also appreciate Ravel’s L’Enfant et les sortilèges, that earlier ‘children’s opera for adults’ of which WTWTA is a thinly-disguised remake.

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