A Rough Landing for "The Little Prince" at Utah Opera Company

Rachel Portman and Nicholas Wright's opera The Little Prince takes flight this week at Utah Opera Company. Based on the book by Antoine de Saint-Expéry, the opera was originally performed at the Houston Grand Opera in 2003. The libretto was written in and is sung in English.

Antoine de Saint-Expéry’s book The Little Prince, first published in 1943, is one of the best-selling and most-translated books ever written. It was voted “Best Book of the 20th Century” in France. Saint-Expéry intended it to be a children’s book, however I have yet to meet any children who really like it. I was a prolific reader as a child, and I didn’t like it. The book really speaks more to adults about the wisdom of children, the corruption of society, and the meaning of life. The illustrations in the book are beautiful, but the satirical jokes about adult life often go over kids’ heads. As an adult, I have come back to it on many occasions thinking, “I really should like this book.” But I just don’t. I find it to be a bizarre, surrealist gallivant through time and space.

Utah Opera Company is advertising this as a family production, and is offering discounted family passes to see it. I saw lots of kids in the audience. The show is visually stunning. However, like the book, I observed that lots of the kids liked how it looked, but were pretty bored with the story. A lot of the kids in the audience were really young, and in the lobby I heard a lot of them telling their parents that they “didn’t get it.” Of course, to those who had read the book before coming to the opera, the story was probably more clear. But to those for whom this was their first introduction to The Little Prince, it was an extremely confusing tale and the opera didn’t really help add much clarity.

While the opera is sung in English, I appreciated that the libretto was projected in English supertitles – it’s not always easy to understand words sung in a classical style. And this also didn’t help a lot of the younger members of the audience who were not strong readers.

The set and costumes by Jacob Climer are spectacular. Climer gives a nod to the opera’s literary inception by creating the Sahara Desert sands and clouds in the skies with pages from books. The three small volcanoes from the Little Prince’s planet are made from mounds of books. The costumes are colorful and fantastical; a veritable feast for the eyes. It really is a beautiful production from the design perspective.

Jared Bybee, who played The Pilot, is a wonderful singer and good actor. In fact, most of the adult company members were marvelous singers and good actors. Melanie Ashkar and Grace Kahl gave beautiful performances respectively as The Fox and The Rose. Unfortunately, much of the staging and blocking was very bland and presentational (as too often seems to be the case in opera), and didn’t give the actors much to do to convey the story.

The production also includes a children’s chorus, comprised of members of the Choristers of the Madeleine Choir School, who sound glorious. In the leading role of the Little Prince is Nitai Fluchel, also a student at the Madeleine Choir School. Nitai has a beautiful voice that sails and carries wonderfully in the theatre. But like most of the other children in this production, he isn’t a very strong actor and seems to just go where he has been told to go and do what he has been told to do without much feeling, emotion, or connection to the other characters, or the material itself. The Little Prince should be a compelling character, full of wonder and curiosity. He is an adventurer who has left his home in a far away galaxy to find answers to his problems. But instead, Natai’s performance, as well as those of the other children in the cast, falls flat. They perform like members of a choir, not members of an acting ensemble.

Portman’s score is beautiful. It has a lovely lyrical quality, and the melodies stick with you as you leave the theater. I found Nicholas Wright’s libretto to be rather uninspired. I believe this stems, however, from the fact that the book The Little Prince is still under copyright, and Wright was closely monitored from a representative from the estate of Saint-Expéry to make sure he didn’t “stray too far” from the original material. It doesn’t appear that he was given much freedom for poetic license with this particular project, and it shows.

Ultimately, The Little Prince is a little esoteric for me as the subject material for an opera. I’ve seen lots of children’s theaters try to create productions out of the book and, as with the opera, it is a tale that may have been originally meant for children, but ultimately speaks to an adult sensibility and always comes off a little odd. It is less a captivating adventure story and more an allegorical tale for grown-ups. Utah Opera Company’s The Little Prince soars visually, but lands a little rough because of bland staging and the fact that this story is just not really that compelling.

Utah Opera Company's "The Little Prince" runs now through January 27 at the Capitol Theatre, located at 50 W 200 S, Salt Lake City, UT 84101, USA. Tickets can be purchased online at www.utahopera.org.