Anyone who falls into the preconception that children won’t or don’t like opera is missing one key thing: kids love a strong story, good music and well-drawn characters just as much as adults. Probably more so.
If anyone of any age is entertained by a production they will enjoy it. That’s the driving force behind producing Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland at Opera Holland Park – and why I’ve always wanted to produce quality children’s theatre.
When we commissioned composer Will Todd and librettist Maggie Gottlieb to start work on this piece, I told them that what I wanted was The Simpsons. They both understood what I meant: the goal was to create an opera that appeals to children and adults. Something that both groups would enjoy and laugh at together.
I put together an absolutely first-rate creative team. Stuart Stratford – who is now music director of Scottish Opera – as conductor, with director Martin Duncan and designer Leslie Travers. Those three would be thought of as a top creative team anywhere in the country. Obviously I wanted them to create a great production, but I also wanted to send out a signal to audiences, the cast and to critics: that we were taking this children’s opera very seriously indeed.
I would advise this to anyone putting on productions to engage younger audiences: put the creative team and cast together as seriously as any main stage production and ideally, have characters, preferably including the leading performer, that children can relate to or associate with at some level.
Alice isn’t our first foray into producing opera for children. In 2010, we produced an abridged version of the Fantastic Mr Fox opera by Tobias Picker and Donald Sturrock, based on the story by Roald Dahl. We did it as a promenade production on the Yukka Lawn in Holland Park as I felt it was important to take it outside of our theatre – both literally and metaphorically – to help us reach a different audience.
We have enjoyed three wonderful sold-out years and over that time, we learned a lot about how to make the most of the environment, about the pacing of a work aimed at children, and about moving the audiences to different parts of the performing space. I’ll never get over the thrill of watching children running to get to front for wherever the next scene was happening – literally running to get to more opera!
For Alice (as with Mr Fox) the audience are seated on the ground just a few feet away from the singers and the orchestra of eleven musicians. It matters to me that children are experiencing an opera this close up. It’s about breaking down barriers and enabling children at a young age to engage with the music. That is the way to developing the audience of the future.
With less music teaching happening in schools, it’s becoming more and more important to find other opportunities to get people engaged with classical music, earlier. Do that and they are more likely to start going for themselves in their twenties.
I hope that coming to Alice will play a part in giving young people the confidence to go to other opera, and to be able to decide for themselves if they do or don’t enjoy any particular one. Going to the opera should be like books, films or food; some you enjoy and some you don’t. But an audience needs confidence to be able to make those choices.
We wanted to keep prices very low to keep the opera accessible, so we charge £5 for children and £10 for adults. Obviously, cost is a major factor for families in determining if they are being able to go to the theatre, so we were very clear about having to keep prices low. For the main stage operas at Opera Holland Park we also have a free tickets scheme for children aged seven to 18.
So far we have only performed Alice during school holidays, but I would say the timing of performances is important. A lot of people say you have to schedule performances around other likely family commitments. I know how busy children’s schedules are these days, but I believe we should be making the work better, so parents or kids don’t want to miss it and make coming along a higher priority.
We’ve just released a studio-recorded album of Alice. So many people were asking for it at the end of the performances we felt we had to do it. I love the idea of it playing in the car when families are traveling somewhere.
This production seems to grow and grow. It has real momentum. That’s partly because of our enduring affection for Alice’s adventures, but also because as with the best straight children’s theatre (Tall Stories’ The Gruffalo and so on) success comes from quality.
James Clutton is producer of Opera Holland Park
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is at Holland Park’s Yukka Lawn until Sunday 2 August
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