The Adventures of Pinocchio (Opera)
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| Title: | Pinocchio's adventure |
| Original title: | The Adventures of Pinocchio |
Image from the first version of the book, 1883 |
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| Shape: | Opera in two acts |
| Original language: | English |
| Music: | Jonathan Dove |
| Libretto : | Alasdair Middleton |
| Literary source: | Carlo Collodi : Pinocchio |
| Premiere: | December 21, 2007 |
| Place of premiere: | Opera North , Leeds, Grand Theater |
| Playing time: | approx. 2 ½ hours |
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Leading roles
Supporting roles (chorus singer)
Choral roles
Not singing roles
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The Adventures of Pinocchio (German: Adventures of Pinocchio ) is an opera in two acts "for the whole family" (original title: "An Opera in Two Acts for all the Family") by Jonathan Dove (music) with a libretto by Alasdair Middleton to Carlo Collodis : Pinocchio . It was premiered on December 21, 2007 by Opera North at the Grand Theater in Leeds. The German translation of the libretto is by Ralf Nürnberger .
action
first act
Scene 1: "The wood" - The forest. Geppetto finds a strange piece of wood.
Scene 2: "Geppetto's hut" - Geppetto's hut. Geppetto hears the piece of wood exclaim: “Make me!” He carves a doll out of it. The Pinocchio created in this way is already hungry and goes looking for food - unfortunately in vain, because Geppetto is poor and cannot afford any supplies. Geppetto goes out to get Pinocchio a book for reading class. He tells Pinocchio to clean the house in the meantime. Instead, Pinocchio rests in front of the fire. There a cricket warns him of the consequences of his laziness. Pinocchio crushes them and falls asleep. He scorches his feet. Geppetto, who sold his coat for the school book, promises Pinocchio new feet if he wants to be good in the future.
Scene 3: “A street” - A street. On the way to school, Pinocchio passes a puppet theater and sells his book in order to buy a ticket.
Scene 4: "The puppet theater" - the puppet theater. The dolls Arlecchino, Rosaura and Pantalone greet Pinocchio as old friends during the performance. The director, a fire eater, threatens to "mercilessly" throw him into the fire as a punishment for this interruption. Pinocchio moans loudly and calls for his father, who will not get along without him. Overwhelmed by the pity that makes itself felt in the itching of his nose, the fire eater lets him go. Instead of him, Arlecchino should now burn. Pinocchio intervenes and demands to bear the punishment himself instead of the innocent Arlecchino. This moves the fire eater so much that he lets it run and also gives five gold coins.
Scene 5: “A street” - A street. A cat and a fox tell Pinocchio about a field of miracles in which he can multiply his money overnight. If he bury it there in the ground, it would grow into trees bearing gold pieces.
Scene 6: "The wood" - The forest. The ghost of the cricket, crushed by Pinocchio, appears to warn him about the deception - but he refuses to listen. In the dark of night, the cat and fox, now disguised as murderers, threaten to murder him and his father if he does not give them his money. Pinocchio flees to a nearby country house. The Blue Fairy lives there, but she cannot open the door for him because she says she is already dead. The murderers catch Pinocchio and hang him from a tree. The Blue Fairy then orders the birds to free him.
Scene 7: “The Blue Fairy's cottage” - The Blue Fairy's country house. Three doctors (owl, crow and beetle) examine Pinocchio and discover countless diseases. He initially refuses to take his medicine. Only when four rabbits are carrying a coffin does he become frightened and gives in. He feels better immediately. But when the fairy asks why Pinocchio was hung up, he tells her a series of lies. After each one, his nose grows a little. Only when he promises the fairy never to lie again does she summon birds to trim his noses back to normal size. She offers him to move into her country house as her little brother. Pinocchio would like to see his father again beforehand. He promises to come back right after that and be smart.
Scene 8: “The wood” - The forest. Again Pinocchio meets the cat and the fox, which lead him to the promised field of miracles. There he buries his money according to their instructions and closes his eyes to wait for the morning. While he dreams of his expected wealth and his father, the two swindlers disappear with the money. A parrot makes fun of his stupidity and tells him what they did.
Scene 9: "The court and jail" - The court and prison. Pinocchio wants to sue his money again in court. But the judge sentenced him to three months in prison for his folly.
Scene 10: “The wood” - The forest. Immediately after his release, Pinocchio wants to return to the Blue Fairy. But instead of her house, he only finds a tombstone that says that she died of grief because her new boyfriend left her. Pinocchio is desperate. A pigeon tells him that Geppetto is looking for him everywhere and that he is now sailing across the sea to a strange land. She offers him to fly there together.
Scene 11: “A beach”. On the seashore, Geppetto gets his boat ready and leaves. Pinocchio and the pigeon are late. Pinocchio jumps into the water to swim behind. People on the beach describe everything from their point of view until they can no longer see anything. They pray to the god of the sea to see him and his father again.
Second act
Scene 1: "Drudgeland" - country of work. Pinocchio is located on the "island of busy bees". He is alone, cold, hungry and longs for his father. When workers come by, he begs for food - but they only want to give him something if he works for them. But he is too good for slave labor. Then a woman appears and promises him chocolate and lemonade when he carries her water jugs home. Pinocchio does the job. Thereupon the woman reveals herself to him as the Blue Fairy, who had only faked her death because her tears of mourning seem more valuable to her than gold. She never wants to part with him again and be his mother in the future. Pinocchio longs to be a real boy. From now on he wants to be good and smart and grow.
Pinocchio is now going to school. There he is teased by his classmates. Still, he doesn't give up, and the teachers believe in him too.
Scene 2: “The seashore”. Pinocchio's friend Lampwick persuades him to skip school and instead go to the sea, where a fish monster has been seen since Geppetto's departure. However, they do not find a monster on the beach, but become the prey of the big green fisherman, who catches them with his net. Fortunately, he doesn't like to eat wood and therefore lets them free again.
Scene 3: “Outside the Blue Fairy's house” - In front of the Blue Fairy's house. In the late evening Pinocchio reaches the fairy's house again and knocks on the door. A snail tells him that the fairy has already gone to bed. She herself takes ages before she succeeds in opening the door. Pinocchio impatiently tries to kick in the door, but his foot gets stuck. Finally the blue fairy appears. She scolds him for tailing off, but promises to turn him into a real boy for his efforts the next day. On this occasion, she wants to organize a party to which he should invite his friends.
Scene 4: “A street” - A street. Pinocchio meets up with Lampwick, whom he wants to invite to the celebration. But Lampwick has no interest in it. Instead, he raves about the "fun land", where there is no school. A donkey-drawn carriage with other children is already coming to pick him up. Pinocchio is also persuaded to come along.
Scene 5: "Funland" - fun land. After their arrival, the children initially have a lot of fun. But the true character of this land quickly becomes apparent: Pinocchio and the others turn into donkeys and are taken to work. Pinocchio is to be trained in the circus.
Scene 6: "The circus" - the circus. After the ringmaster has grandly announced Pinocchio to the audience as a dancing donkey, the latter fails and breaks his leg. Now that it is useless, the director sells it to a drum maker who is only interested in its skin.
Scene 7: “The seashore”. The drum maker wants to kill the Pinocchio donkey without damaging its skin. So he throws it weighted down with a stone into the sea. Fortunately, the Blue Fairy reappears and tells the fish to save him. The fish monster devours him.
Scene 8: “Inside the big fish” - In the big fish. At first Pinocchio suffers again from loneliness and the cold. But then it turns out that his father, who is now very old, was eaten by the fish monster. Overjoyed, the two hug each other. Geppetto tells Pinocchio that the fish suffers from asthma and therefore sleeps with its mouth open. So the two can escape and swim to the shore.
Scene 9: “The village by the sea” - The village by the sea. Pinocchio seeks help for his weakened old father. He meets the cricket, who is also still alive, and tells him that Geppetto only needs some milk to recover. Pinocchio goes to a nearby farm, where he offers his work for the necessary money. The farmer is impressed by his energy. After the father received his milk, other people offered Pinocchio work, and Geppetto soon made a full recovery. Cat and fox also arrive. You are now blind and lame and ask for his support. Pinocchio keeps working. Then he discovers his friend Lampwick on the farm, who still has his donkey shape and is now dying. Pinocchio finally saw the value of honest work. His father is proud of him. Suddenly the snail appears with bad news: The Blue Fairy had come to the hospital seriously ill. Without hesitation, Pinocchio gave all his money to buy medicine and food for her. The reward is not long in coming, because the fairy announces that he has learned his lesson and turns him into a real boy.
layout
The Adventures of Pinocchio is a large-scale, well-composed opera with a symphonic sound. Alfred Hickling, the reviewer of the Guardian , compared its wealth of effects with that of Janáček's Smart Vixen . The sound world is still unique. Most of all he admired Dove's uncompromising attitude, with which he also set to music the dark elements of the original that were often cut out. The scene in which Pinocchio is cheated of his money is almost "too morbid" ("too morbid to bear"). Still, the young audience seemed to be enjoying the opera.
The reviewer of the opera world found the musical language to be a beautiful-sounding “mix of Sondheim , Britten , Stravinsky , Janácek , Prokofiev and de Falla ”, but also recognized an “individual signature ”. The whale reminded him of Wagner's Fafner from the Ring of the Nibelung . However, he was bothered by the “often hard-working and repetitive” libretto with its “shortened, naive style of speech”, which is tiring over the long term. In the music he criticized the rhythms of the title character, which were "endlessly dotted [...] in a barely concealed Sondheim manner". The melodies seemed to him monotonous "to be formed according to the same simple arpeggio pattern". His conclusion was: "You only seem interested in giving sugar to a child audience - with an ambivalent hybrid of opera and musical."
Edward Greenfield, the reviewer of the Gramophone , found the music colorful and lively ("colorful and vigorous") and pointed out the inventive instrumentation and the sharp jazzy syncopation. It is an extremely attractive new opera ("a most attractive new opera").
orchestra
The orchestral line-up for the opera includes the following instruments:
- Woodwinds : two flutes (2nd also piccolo ), two oboes (2nd also English horn ), two clarinets (1st also Eb clarinet , 2nd also soprano saxophone ), two bassoons (2nd also contrabassoon )
- Brass : four horns , three trumpets , three trombones , tuba
- Timpani , drums (three players): crotales , glockenspiel , tubular bells , vibraphone , xylophone , bass drum , bodhrán , bongos , cabasa , pair of cymbals , claves , flexaton , hi-hat , güiro , mark tree , ratchet , sandpaper blocks, shaker tube , small hand bell , (School bell), snare drum , hanging cymbal , two flutes , tambourine , tam-tam , temple blocks , triangle , tom-toms , whip, wooden blocks , vibraslap
- Piano (also celesta )
- two accordions (also on stage)
- mandolin
- harp
- Strings : ten violins 1, eight violins 2, five violas , four cellos , three double basses
Work history
According to the Guardian , The Adventures of Pinocchio is already the 21st opera (including chamber operas and the like) by Jonathan Dove. Alasdair Middleton's libretto is based on Carlo Collodi's well-known children's story Pinocchio from 1881. The opera was commissioned for Opera North with London's Sadler's Wells Theater. The premiere was a co-production with the Chemnitz Theater .
At the world premiere on December 21, 2007 in Leeds, David Parry conducted the Opera North Orchestra and Choir. Directed by Martin Duncan, stage design and costumes by Francis O'Connor, lighting by Davy Cunningham and choreography by Nick Winston. Victoria Simmonds (Pinocchio), Jonathan Summers (Geppetto), Rebecca Bottone (Cricket / Parrot), Graeme Broadbent (fire eater and others), Mark Wilde (cat), James Laing (fox / coachman), Mary Plazas (blue fairy) played the leading roles . , Carole Wilson (pigeon / snail), Allan Clayton (Lampwick).
The work was played in Leeds until January 2008. Opera North then went on tour through Nottingham, Salford Quays, Belfast, London and Newcastle until March 2008. Because of its great success, the piece was put back on the Opera North repertoire in 2010.
The Chemnitz Theater was also involved in the premiere production. The opera was played there from June 2008 in a German translation by Ralf Nürnberger . Other productions were:
- 2009: Minnesota Opera, USA (Conductor: Anne Manson, Director: Martin Duncan, Stage and Costumes: Francis O'Connor, Choreography: Nick Winston, Pinocchio: Adriana Zabala)
- 2010: Muse Opera, South Korea
- 2010–2011: Oper Stuttgart (Director: Markus Bothe , Conductor: Willem Wentzel, Pinocchio: Tina Hörhold)
- 2012: Teatr Sats, Russia
- 2014: Guildhall School of Music and Drama (Director: Martin Lloyd-Evans, Conductor: Dominic Wheeler)
- 2014: Oper Bonn (Director: Martin Duncan, Set Designer : Francis O'Connor, Conductor: Johannes Pell, Pinocchio: Susanne Blattert )
- 2015: Oldenburgisches Staatstheater (Director: Jens Kerbel, Stage: Dirk Hofacker, Conductor: Carlos Vázquez, Pinocchio: Pavel Shmulevich)
Recordings
- 2008 - David Parry (conductor), Martin Duncan (director), Francis O'Connor (stage design and costumes), Davy Cunningham (lighting design), Nick Winston (choreography), Opera North orchestra and choir .
Victoria Simmonds (Pinocchio), Jonathan Summers (Geppetto), Rebecca Bottone (cricket / parrot), Graeme Broadbent (fire eater and others), Mark Wilde (tomcat), James Laing (fox / coachman), Mary Plazas (blue fairy), Carole Wilson (Pigeon / snail), Allan Clayton (Lampwick).
Video; Recording of the premiere production from Leeds.
Opus Arte OA 1005 D.
Web links
- Score for at Issuu
- Minnesota Opera program booklet, 2008/09 (English) from Issuu
- Detailed table of contents in the Tamino Klassikforum
Individual evidence
- ^ A b c Alfred Hickling: The Adventures of Pinocchio. Review of the premiere (English). In: The Guardian, January 9, 2008, accessed November 9, 2017.
- ↑ Jonathan Dove's “Pinocchio” in Leeds. In: Opernwelt from March 2008.
- ^ A b Edward Greenfield: Dove (The) Adventures of Pinocchio. DVD review (English). In: Gramophone , accessed November 9, 2017.
- ↑ Information in the score.
- ↑ a b c d The Adventures of Pinocchio. Work information on composer Jonathan Dove's website, accessed November 9, 2017.
- ^ Opera North's Winter Season: Butterfly, Grimes and a new English opera (BK) on MusicWeb International, accessed November 9, 2017.
- ↑ Tim Ashley: The Adventures of Pinocchio. Review of the performance in Leeds 2010 (English). In: The Guardian, September 20, 2010, accessed November 9, 2017.
- ↑ Minnesota Opera program booklet, 2008/09 (English) from Issuu, accessed on November 9, 2017.
- ↑ Pinocchio's Adventure. Performance information ( memento of November 10, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) of the Stuttgart Opera, accessed on November 9, 2011.
- ↑ performance information of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama , accessed November 9, 2017th
- ↑ Udo Pacolt: BONN: PINOCCHIOS ABENTEUER by Jonathan Dove as a family opera. Review of the 2014 performance in Bonn , accessed on November 9, 2017.
- ↑ Pinocchio's Adventure. Performance information from the Oldenburg State Theater , accessed on November 9, 2017.