Rachel Portman: The Little Prince
June 2005 Reviewed by: Wes Marshall Format: DVD	(all ratings out of 5): Overall Enjoyment Picture Quality Packaged Extras Sound Quality

French pilot Antoine de Saint-Exupery wrote The Little Prince in 1943, ostensibly as a children’s book, but like the best of that breed, it also functioned as a stinging satire of the adult world. The story revolves around a pilot whose plane is downed in the Sahara desert. While searching for a way to survive the lack of water and get his plane operational, he meets a young boy -- a prince -- who claims to be from another world. He tells the story of his globe-hopping adventures where only one adult inhabits each planet. Each of the adults described is a rich caricature that allows grownups to laugh at their own foibles, and perhaps more importantly, allows the children to see the adults take the ribbing. While the opening of the book is comedic, it turns pastoral and enchanting as the little prince and the pilot develop a mutual love and respect.

The Little Prince is an ideal story for an opera. With its colorful characters and dramatic final act, it faced only one major hurdle: Child singers who can carry an entire production are rather thin on the ground. For this production, director Francesca Zambello, composer Rachel Portman, and their support staff put out a casting call to all of England. 25,000 children applied. After going through their resumes, 6500 were auditioned. After deliberating, arguing and deliberating some more (a process caught beautifully in the "making of" documentary included with the DVD), 150 came to the final judging. Only 40 parts were available in the film, so the 150 were put through grueling workouts until the director settled on the final forty.

With this incredible winnowing, it should come as no surprise that Joseph McManners, the final choice for the lead, is positively stellar. Unlike most children, his pitch is spot-on and his enunciation crystal clear. The other important role is the pilot, played here by Teddy Tahu Rhodes. The danger of the role is to be emotionally subservient to a child without appearing to be a wimp, a feat that Rhodes handles perfectly. His voice, burnished and rich, carries part of the load, but his acting is also of a very high level. Rachel Portman, composer of over 70 film scores, provides a dreamy, magical impressionism with occasional sounds of a post-modern Britten. The sound, closely recorded, is superb. The sets are also of the highest quality and the camera work uses film techniques, avoiding the stage-bound central camera in favor of overlays and rapid cuts between multi-camera close-ups. This does not look like the normal video opera. Which is something we desperately need.

When I attend live opera, the majority of the other patrons seem to be 70 years and older. As with all forms of classical music, if we do not do something to get the children interested, opera is on a slow boat to demise. Kudos to Rachel Portman, the BBC, and the three opera companies -- the Houston Grand Opera (where the opera premiered), the Skylight Opera Theatre in Milwaukee, and the Boston Lyric Opera -- who paid their dear, hard-earned money to stage the opera in the first place. If you have any interest in the art form, pay the paltry $13 the DVD costs, sit with a pre-teen, and watch the magic light up their eyes.

• Go Back