A little hit

HAVE you seen The Little Prince? I'm not talking about the big-screen musical clone by Lerner & Loewe (1974). I'm not talking about the Claymation short, narrated by Cliff Robertson (1979). Nor am I talking about any of the other movie or TV versions of Antoine de Saint-Exupery's classic. I'm talking about the opera, composed by Rachel Portman two years ago. Her Little Prince is a little hit, and it will occupy the stage of New York City Opera in mid-November.

It was originally commissioned by Houston Grand Opera, commissioner of a great many works. And when it made its splash, it was televised by the BBC. Opera on television (and new opera at that)--just like the old days!

Portman is an Englishwoman, the composer of numerous film scores. In 1997, she won an Oscar for Emma. In 2000, she wrote the score to The Legend of Bagger Vance, a lousy golf movie based on a wonderful golf novel. In any case, Portman has ample experience in how to tell or enhance stories through music.

The Little Prince is one of many recent operas to take advantage of a beloved text. Of course, this has been a trick of composers from earliest times (Monteverdi went Greek). In 1998, Mark Adamo set Little Women, and that opera has been seen all over the country. Next spring, New York City Opera will stage Adamo's newest opera, Lysistrata. (He went Greek too.) What you can almost call a mega-hit is Jake Heggie's Dead Man Walking, composed in 2000. "You loved the movie; now see the opera," went the joke. In 2004, Heggie adapted The End of the Affair.

What else is out there? Last May saw the premiere of Lorin Maazel's 1984. Six years ago, the Metropolitan Opera unveiled John Harbison's Great Gatsby (a review of which ran in these pages: "The Okay Gatsby"). William Bolcom has turned to Arthur Miller for A View from the Bridge (1999) and to Frank Norris for McTeague (1992). In 1998, Andre Previn did A Streetcar Named Desire.

And they never tire of Shakespeare, do they? Lee Hoiby has done both a Tempest (1986) and a Romeo and Juliet (2005). The latter is not yet scheduled for a premiere, but it ought to be: The excerpts I have heard are appetite-whetting.

Next month, the Metropolitan Opera will present another new opera: Tobias Picker's American Tragedy, based, of course, on the Dreiser novel. Come to think of it, Sister Carrie would make an excellent opera, too--imagine the title role!

But back to The Little Prince, and Rachel Portman. On one hand, to select this tale for an opera is a no-brainer, because audiences come knowing the story, and cherishing it. On the other hand, what if you mess it up, angering the Little Prince public? Portman did not mess it up. She has written a children's opera, but it's an opera that anyone can enjoy--same as one and all enjoy Amahl and the Night Visitors, especially at Christmastime.

As long as we're talking about recent opera, I might as well mention that Charles Wuorinen wrote a children's opera, premiered at New York City Opera last season: That was Haroun and the Sea of Stories, based on a novella of Salman Rushdie. Actually, I should blush to call Haroun a children's opera: It may involve children, and contain touches of whimsy, but it is fearsomely modernist, Wuorinenesque. I doubt it would appeal to any child--that would have to be one weird (and impressively cerebral) child.

You can find The Little Prince on CD or DVD (from Sony and the BBC). The opera's starring role, fittingly, is the title role, and it is for boy soprano. The original cast happened to have a superb one--a British kid named Joseph McManners, born in 1993. This is an exceptionally demanding role, the Little Prince: He is onstage for the whole two hours of the opera, and he's singing for much of that time. Whenever this work is staged, a terribly gifted, terribly mature boy will have to be found. Let's hope that supply is not a problem.

Portman's score is as it should be: simple, small-scale, tuneful. It comports with Saint-Exupery's words, and also with his drawings, which impress on the memory maybe even more than the words. There is a transparency about this score, and at times it is almost French, in its delicacy. In addition, there's a lot of flying around in Saint-Exupery's story, and Portman is good at flying, musically. That is almost a precondition for taking on this task.

Saint-Exupery invented many creatures and characters, so Portman has many opportunities for musical portraiture. Remember the Vain Man, who must constantly hear applause? From Portman's pen, he is marvelously ridiculous. And the Drunkard is marvelously drunken. As for the Businessman, he is coldly calculating--literally so, as he tallies up his sums on an adding machine (rat-a-tat). The Hunters are both menacing and buffoonish.

I might note that the Businessman and the Hunters are the obvious bad guys in the opera--just like in Hollywood!

Outstanding in Portman's score are her choruses, which are well-crafted, affirming, and close to irresistible. These are the bits you sing as you leave the opera house, or turn off your stereo (or DVD player).