Children's opera

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Children's Opera Dortmund

As a children's opera to musical theater productions for an audience of children, operas specially designated for the performance by children and by children themselves composed operas. In addition, institutions, performance venues or program series specializing in such works are often referred to as children's operas.

Children's operas are intended to introduce children to the world of opera. They can have fairytale-like or other acts primarily intended for children, they can contain age-specific music, have educational motifs, be intended for schools as performance locations or for the children's media program. The boundary to children's ballet is often fluid.

history

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The school dramas of the Jesuits in the 17th and 18th centuries Century were partly intended for children. In this sense, Mozart's classicistic Singspiel with a religious background Apollo et Hyacinthus (1767) is a play by children for children. The more modern school operas developed from this genre .

Children's opera as an operatic genre has only developed since the end of the 19th century. The most famous piece is Hansel and Gretel (1893) by the composer Engelbert Humperdinck , which is still performed at Christmas time by many German-speaking city theaters. A children's play or Christmas fairy tale was part of the repertoire of many opera houses in the 20th century, on the one hand to get a young audience used to the theater, on the other hand to fill the box office, since the performances were usually well attended. Few of these occasional pieces survived their premiere.

Routine productions of artistically dubious quality were particularly critical of the fairy tale operas, so that in the period between the world wars, renewal efforts got underway, for example with Kurt Weill's didactic play Der Jasager (1930) or Paul Hindemith's We Build a City (1930). Children's operas were often used as a means of transporting ideologies, which in turn gave rise to criticism.

In 1938 Albert Jenny composed the fairy tale opera The Rubin in three acts, for solo voices, choir and orchestra, based on the libretto of the same name by Friedrich Hebbel, for the school stage.

The children's opera Brundibár , composed by Hans Krásas in 1938, was premiered in 1941 in the Jewish children's home in Prague and re-enacted in the Theresienstadt concentration camp after Krása's deportation . It was not until the rediscovery of the opera in the 1970s that the German premiere took place in 1985.

The influences of jazz and pop music since the 1950s led to mixed forms between opera and musical . Andrew Lloyd Webber's Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (1968) approaches the school drama again .

The most popular are still arrangements of well-known pieces as children's operas, such as Mozart's Magic Flute .

Well-known pieces

The list is sorted alphabetically according to the title of the children's opera:

Institutions

State and municipal opera houses for children

Today there is a tendency to exclude children's operas from the opera repertoire and leave them to specialized ensembles. In 1996, the first children's opera in Europe was launched. The children's opera in the Cologne Opera House , then called the Yakult Hall , a miniature opera house set up in the foyer , became a model for similar facilities in other cities. Due to the renovation of the opera house, the Cologne Children's Opera is currently located in its interim theater Altes Pfandhaus in Südstadt (approx. 200 m from Chlodwigplatz ). After that, she should have her own house again in the great opera.

The Deutsche Oper am Rhein has played a children's opera every year at the Duisburg Theater and the Düsseldorf Opera since the beginning of Christoph Meyer's directorship in 2009. At the beginning of the 2013/14 season, the Deutsche Oper am Rhein, the Dortmund Opera and the Bonn Theater started a cooperation under the title “Young Opera Rhine-Ruhr”. The three institutes jointly award composition commissions for world premieres of major children's operas. As part of this cooperation, Marius Felix Lange's “Vom Mädchen Who Didn't Want to Sleep ” premiered in 2014 with a libretto by Martin Baltscheit , followed in 2015 by Jörn Arnecke's family opera “Ronja the robber's daughter ” based on Astrid Lindgren 's children's book (libretto: Holger Potocki) on April 23 Finally, in 2016, Marius Felix Lange's “The Snow Queen” (libretto by the composer) based on Hans Christian Andersen was premiered.

The opera piccola of the Hamburg State Opera - opera for children - opera with children - celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2011. The performances took place at Kampnagel from 2001 to 2011 . From 2012 to 2016 children's operas were performed in the Opera stable (small stage of the State Opera).

The Dortmund Children's Opera opened on May 5, 2008.

From 1999 to 2014 the children's opera of the Vienna State Opera is housed in a tent on the roof of the opera house, in which 31 in-house productions and more than 2000 performances were given. The children's opera of the State Opera moved to the Walfischgasse city theater in autumn 2015. The Théâtre National du Luxembourg has played a children's opera every year since 2003.

The Deutsche Oper Berlin plays its Children's Music Theater in the foyer of the opera house.

The Junge Staatsoper in Berlin has been playing two children's operas and one youth opera per season in the workshop of the Schiller Theater since 2010 .

Private opera houses for children

The theater for children (founded in 1968) began in 1979. Since then, there has been a new opera production in-house in almost every season. In addition, there has been a theater education program for teachers since 2003.

The Kontra-Punkt theater from Düsseldorf has been presenting musical theater for children since 1984. The work of this theater has followed Stravinsky's tradition from the start. The Kontra-Punkt theater is one of the first theaters to initiate co-productions between schools and professional institutions such as municipal symphony orchestras.

Since 2007, the Cologne Chamber Opera has been playing 7 to 10 different children's operas with theater pedagogy in its own small opera house in Cologne-Rodenkirchen. Numerous workshops, concerts and galas expand the offer.

The Bayreuth Festival also offers operas for children every year. The showcase project initiated by Katharina Wagner started in 2009 with a Dutchman for children and has been an integral part of the festival ever since. Since then, the following child-friendly performances have been created:

Touring theater

In 1984 the Kontra-Punkt theater was founded in Düsseldorf and developed small musical theater works for children and young people for the Berlin Senate in its early years. A series of commissioned compositions followed, such as “Schlimmes Ende” based on Philip Ardagh with music by Hauke ​​Berheide and “Der kleine Häwelmann ” by the same composer. Such productions were made known to an international audience at the Düsseldorf opera festival “6-Tage-Oper”.

The Kleine Oper Bad Homburg has been touring Germany since 1990 and presents professional classical music theater for children.

The children's opera Papageno , founded in 1994, is a group of young graduates from the Conservatory and the University of Music in Vienna, which, as a touring theater, performs singing plays by Peter Pacher based on classical works.

The non-profit association Musikforum Niedersachsen e. V. was founded in December 1999 by the opera singer Almuth Marianne Kroll in Hanover with the aim of promoting cultural education through music theater. Today the association has its headquarters in Braunschweig and its contact point in the Wolfenbüttel district. An important focus is on performances for and with children and young people in theaters, but also in schools.

The non-profit association "JO! - Junge Oper", founded in 2004, implements operas, musical theater and multi-day workshops for children and young people with professional opera singers in German-speaking countries.

The music theater "Kinder des Olymp", founded in Vienna, has existed since 2005.

The children's opera PICCOLINO Vienna offers opera and ballet performances as well as music workshops for children. She is now touring all over Austria, Germany and South Tyrol.

The Junge Musiktheater Hamburg (JMH), founded in 2002, is a touring theater that performs operas adapted for children.

The Lübeck Pocket Opera was founded in 2004 and has been bringing out a new production every year since then. She has been cooperating with Theater Lübeck since 2006 , where she also brings out her premieres. She also appears in schools and at festivals. In 2010 she received the Rheingau Music Prize at the Rheingau Music Festival .

Since 1996 the Junge Kammeroper Köln has also been offering self-written and edited children's operas on tour throughout the German-speaking region. Together with the Cologne Symphony Orchestra, an opera or operetta production for adults is added to the repertoire every year.

In addition to children's operas, the opera workshop on the Rhine also performs cabaret opera programs.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Interview with Joachim Herz 2002 ( Memento of the original from September 29, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. : Herz emphasizes that Mohaupt's Bremen Town Musicians “might really be something for today, especially in view of the lack of operas suitable for children”. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.der-neue-merker.eu
  2. ↑ Three stages in North Rhine-Westphalia put family operas on their feet (February 6, 2014)
  3. ↑ Premiere for "Junge Opern Rhein-Ruhr" (February 7, 2014)
  4. ↑ 10 years "Opera piccola". In: Journal of the Hamburg State Opera, Edition 3 2010/11, p. 20
  5. ↑ State Opera plays children's opera in Walfischgasse (October 8, 2014)
  6. ↑ A love death cannot be half a thing, Eleonore Büning, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, August 6, 2013.
  7. ^ Richard Wagner for children, Bayreuth Festival. Accessed on March 12, 2015. ( Memento of the original from April 14, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.bayreuther-festspiele.de
  8. ^ Little Opera Bad Homburg
  9. ^ Almuth Marianne Kroll - opera singer. Retrieved October 23, 2019 .
  10. ↑ Musikforum Niedersachsen eV Accessed on October 23, 2019 .
  11. ↑ Young Opera
  12. ↑ Lübeck Pocket Opera