The Firework-Maker’s Daughter, The Opera Group & Opera North & ROH2, Linbury Studio Theatre

The Firework-Maker's Daughter is a smartly gift-wrapped musical entertainment which won’t put a child off opera for life, says Rupert Christiansen.

The Firework Maker's Daughter
The Firework Maker's Daughter Credit: Photo: Robert Workman

Being a congenital sceptic on the subject of opera for children, I approached this new piece, based on a tale by Philip Pullman and aimed at 5-8 year olds, with a degree of trepidation.

My doubts were neither vindicated nor confounded. Pullman’s story, efficiently turned into a libretto by Glyn Maxwell, is simple and strong. Set in fairy-tale China, it focuses on Lila, a spirited girl who faces parental opposition to her ambition to become a firework-maker like her papa. Undaunted, Lila sets off with her friend Chulak and an Eyeorish elephant in search of the secrets of pyrotechnics.

After a run of picaresque contretemps and dodgy encounters, Lila finds what she needs and beats all comers to win an X-Factor style firework competition. There’s not too much detail here, and the central characters are firmly drawn: at the matinee performance I attended, the core audience sat reasonably still and laughed at the jokes throughout. Only two tots had to be taken out screaming.

Attention was also held by David Bruce’s brightly descriptive and buoyant music. Scored for a small band including a liberally employed xylophone and accordion, it makes light-footed use of the clichés of languidly exotic orientalism and livens up periodically with some thumping nursery-school tunes.

My one reservation, shared by two nice little girls Amber and India sitting next to me, is that it has needlessly been through-composed and stitched with passages of dull recitative and arioso. Why the fear of using spoken dialogue for moments when the plot needs clarifying? Amber and India didn’t understand why “they were singing but it wasn’t a song”, and I know just what they meant.

Inventively designed by Dick Bird, John Fulljames’s production is excellent, marred only by excessive darkness in Guy Hoare’s lighting plot. Steve Tiplady and Sally Todd provide brilliantly low-tech, non-CGI special effects including some enchanting shadow puppetry, but I sensed some disappointment that a proper burst of indoor fireworks never materialised.

Lucid singing and uninhibited acting from a terrific cast of five including Mary Bevan as Lila, Amra Muchhalka as Chulak and James Laing as a counter-tenor elephant contribute to the show’s success. It’s not a life-changing knockout (like Britten’s Noye’s Fludde can be), but it’s a smartly gift-wrapped musical entertainment which won’t put a child off opera for life – which is more than I can say for other efforts in this genre.

Touring until June. Tickets:020 7848 7314; (www.theoperagroup.co.uk)