Going gaga for opera

NEW YORK PARENTS, ever vigilant for new ways to amuse their offspring, picked up their babies and flocked to the Metropolitan Opera last week for a very special US performance.
“BambinO” – a 40-minute opera composed specifically for infants –crossed the Atlantic for a booked-out, six-day run after winning over audiences in Britain and Paris.
Well-dressed and well-groomed six- to 18-month-old New Yorkers assembled in a small auditorium at the Met, either cradled on parents’ knees or crawling and toddling among a sea of soft blue cushions.
Babies can make as much noise as they want, the audience was told. Adults, on the other hand, are told to pipe down.

The character Pulcino, played by Timothy Connor, performs for BambinO – a 40minute opera composed specifically for infants./AFP

Then the music started. Sung in Italian and baby sounds, the opera is performed by a cellist, a percussionist and two singers, who roam among the children, introducing them to furry toy birds and a golden egg.
Almost any baby contemplating a meltdown stopped crying, variously grinning, baffled and engaged by the colourfully costumed singers.
Sloane Campbell, 12 months, already goes to a music class once a week and her mother Kate Mangiameli is a Met singer herself, but last Monday marked her first live performance.
“Hearing that kind of singing from someone other than me is probably pretty great for her,” said Mangiameli.
The plot, secondary to the music as in most operas, tells the story of a bird, a baby bird and their relationship before the baby’s quest for flight ultimately leads to separation.
“It’s not a patronising kiddies show, it’s a genuine, beautiful piece of quite challenging music,” director Phelim McDermott explained. Jokes aside about the Met’s quest to lower the average age of its audience, each performance seeks to win over babies and caregivers to an art form often castigated as elitist and out of touch.

Laura Sergeant accompanies the action on cello, giving the kids something else to adore./AFP

“We thought what a magical thing to bring true opera to little people,” said composer Lliam Paterson, who believes even very young children respond to musical patterns, rhythm and text.
Initially commissioned by Scottish Opera and performed in Scotland and Manchester, Paterson said coming to New York, arguably one of the world’s greatest opera venues, was “amazing.” Charlotte Hoather, who plays the character Uccellina, said reactions are different every time, and vary from country to country. If French children were very calm, Americans were more forthright.
“We had confident babies today. Very brave,” she commented.
“I was just having fun because she was clearly overjoyed the whole time. I couldn’t stop smiling,” said nurse Jessie Thisell, whose daughter Bonnie wandered around transfixed.
“She wouldn’t have enjoyed it if she had to sit still.”
In a world of opera obsessed with widening outreach, “BambinO” makes no secret of its determination to win over new audiences.
“We’ve had people who love rock music and punk rock people and they were like ‘I might go to something at my local theatre’ and that’s really cool,” Hoather said.
The performers say meltdowns are surprisingly few, and usually food or tiredness-related.
“It’s an experiment. We’ll see what happens,” said Peter Gelb, general manager of the Met, asked whether it could become regular repertoire. 
“We need to reintroduce the arts to the school system and we might as well start earlier than that, at the beginning.”
But McDermott had words of advice for parents trying to push the envelope and bring children older than 18 months.
“We genuinely created an opera for babies. Toddlers get bored.”