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On May 31, 2003, Houston Grand Opera will offer its 27th world premiere, The Little Prince, by Rachel Portman and Nicholas Wright. USOPERAWEB spoke with the opera’s creators.

Rachel Portman Comes to Center Stage with The Little Prince

By Mark Rhodes

(l-r) Little Prince librettist Nicholas Wright, Houston Grand Opera general director David Gockley, estate trustee Frédéric d'Agay and (front) Little Prince composer Rachel Portman at the Saint-Exupéry estate.

At the source of inspiration: (l-r) Little Prince librettist Nicholas Wright, Houston Grand Opera general director David Gockley, estate trustee Frédéric d'Agay and (front) Little Prince composer Rachel Portman at the Saint-Exupéry estate. A life-sized image of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry hangs in the background.

Rachel Portman is among the first rank of film composers working today. She has been nominated for an Academy Award three times (Emma, The Cider House Rules, Chocolat), winning for Emma in 1997. In addition, she has composed scores for films such as Only You, Used People, Beloved, and The Truth About Charlie. This award was both a personal triumph and a history-making victory, as she was the first female composer to win an Academy Award. She has attracted an impressive following as a result of the breadth and range of her work. Ms. Portman manages to shift back and forth between a mixture of musical styles to give her film scores a connection with the material. Whether using African music to help convey the impact of the emotions in the film Beloved or using a heavy string underscore and dramatic piano work to convey the intensity of combat for the film Hart’s War, Ms. Portman is a master of connecting cinematic drama and audience emotion.

Ms. Portman has recently added a new category to her work, that of opera composer. Ms. Portman’s operatic adaptation of the children’s literary classic, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince, will make its world premiere at the Houston Grand Opera in May 2003. USOPERAWEB sat down to talk with Ms. Portman about the process of creating an opera out of a well-know work of art.

Asked about her first memories of The Little Prince, Ms. Portman related, “I first read the book as a child and the images stayed with me. When I read it as a child, I read it on a different level. You remember the poignancy of the work from when you were young. But you don’t remember why it was poignant. I reread it with the idea that I was looking for a project to turn into an opera for children and adults. It seemed like the perfect piece to transform into an opera. I was staggered by how incredibly beautiful and simple the story was, while having a reservoir of great depth.”

Despite the fact that The Little Prince is a literary classic, it is often referred to as a children’s book and classified as such. When asked if this classification gave Ms. Portman any pause she answered quite readily, “Absolutely not! It is a very serious book. And I think that projects aimed at children are just as serious as projects aimed at adults. In fact, that is one of the themes of the book—that the things adults believe are important are not necessarily that important, and the things that we lose when we grow into adults are often vitally important to hold onto. Part of the reason that I wanted to write a serious opera for children is that there are not enough of these kinds of work.”

In spite of this belief, Ms. Portman had some reservations about the adaptability of The Little Prince to the opera stage. “After I considered it, I thought, ‘hang on, it is just too linear.’ I thought that it didn’t lend itself to an ensemble and it would just be too difficult. But, after some thought and discussion I came to believe that it would work if we dramatized it and gave it a momentum. I realized that if that could be done, it would be a great source for an opera.”

The Little Prince sketches by Maria Bjornson.

The Little Prince sketch by Maria Bjornson.

Ms. Portman’s prolific career as a film composer was advantageous (to a certain extent) for her initial foray into opera. “Most of the work I have done in my adult life has to do with telling stories,” Ms. Portman pointed out. “That is what I feel I do best when I am writing music: telling stories, creating emotions, making people feel things. That part of my work has been a help to me. Now I am doing more and just exploring it further really.”

Ms. Portman noted that there were other key differences between her work in film and her work on The Little Prince. “Up until now, I was called upon to provide or add to tension and drama or increase the pace of the storytelling. In The Little Prince I am solely responsible. So I have had to consider quite carefully the dramatic momentum—that it keeps moving forward. In addition to this, we have had to work very hard to remain as faithful as possible to the book which often means including quite difficult passages.”

With regard to any concern about audience reaction to an adaptation of a well-known, multi-generational classic Ms. Portman remains philosophical. “There are bound to be people who are not sure about the production because they had very personal feelings about the book. Of course all I can do is give my own response to the material. I am not writing an opera for any other reason than to tell that very same story. So, I am not writing this in some modern musical language that might be difficult to understand. I really want people to understand it. I want to communicate the same, simple message that was communicated by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.”

The process of translating this message was “hugely challenging,” according to Ms. Portman. “I am still overwhelmed by the challenge of it every single day. It is so enormous, doing something like this! There is a massive amount of editing which I didn’t recognize. I thought ‘oh, I will just write it and then orchestrate it’ but there are constantly questions. When we start rehearsals in Houston there are going to be constant questions from all of the different people singing—like ‘hang on this is hard for me.’ These are not things that I typically consider when I am working with an orchestra on a film piece. I haven’t been accustomed to working so intensely with singers. So, it is another whole consideration. Again, it is not just an orchestra, it is all of these voices, and it’s a chorus and as a result the work never feels finished [she laughs].”

Asked if she listened to any particular music or viewed any films in the process of creating her version of The Little Prince, Ms. Portman admits that the source material was her mainstay and helped keep her inspired through the challenges of creating this piece. “I constantly referred to it. That was everything for me. I really didn’t study any particular works, opera or otherwise. I mainly wanted to find the language from myself for myself.”

When questioned whether or not she has plans to tackle the process of creating another opera anytime soon, Ms. Portman admitted that “I don’t have another opera in mind at the moment, I am sure I would love to do another one someday. I will say that I am not in any hurry to do one now [she laughs]. I want to see how this one comes out.”

Nicholas Wright Gives the Librettist’s Perspective

By Mark Rhodes

Born in South Africa in 1940, Nicholas Wright began his career as a child actor, eventually studying at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and ending up at the Old Vic Touring Company as a performer. Highlights of his interesting, varied stage career include stints as the first director of the Royal Court’s Theatre Upstairs and work with the Royal National Theatre as an Associate Director from 1984 until 1998.

The Little Prince sketch by Maria Bjornson.

Despite an impressive run as a performer and director, Mr. Wright is best know for his work as a playwright. His works include The Custom of the Country and The Desert Air (both for the Royal Shakespeare Company) and Mrs. Klein and Cressida. In addition to his own work, he has adapted Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author, Ibsen’s John Gabriel Borkman and (for later 2003) Chekhov’s Three Sisters. Currently, a play with Vincent Van Gogh as the protagonist, Vincent in Brixton is playing to strong reviews on Broadway.

Notwithstanding his prolific and wide-ranging work as an actor-director-playwright, Mr. Wright recently added a new hyphen to his title: librettist. His collaboration with composer Rachel Portman and director Francesca Zambello on the operatic adaptation of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince is set to premiere at the Houston Grand Opera at the end of May. USOPERAWEB spoke to him on the eve of the world premiere about his experiences and involvement in adapting this beloved work of literature into a musical piece.

“I was introduced to it when Francesca Zambello sent me an e-mail asking if I would be interested in adapting it as an opera. Until then, I knew nothing about it. I loved the book when I read it because it had a wonderful sense of France, a country and culture that I love. Where else do people write with such seriousness but lightness about love, death, and the meaning of life?”

When asked if he had concerns about adapting the work, he answered with refreshing candor. “I thought it would be hard and it was. There have been many adaptations of The Little Prince and though I have not seen them all, I can’t help but notice that none had become a classic of the spoken or musical stage. One of the main problems is that the story is told in a discursive way in that it goes backwards and forwards in time. The central character is uneasy and often scarcely interacting with his earthly friend, the Pilot. None of these are the conventional bricks of a well-made drama. I pinned my faith on the belief that within this apparently artless fable was hidden a series of profound truths. We felt that to hype the story up in a way, or make it more ‘dramatic’ would be to violate those truths. So we followed what seemed to us to be the truest and simplest path: Just taking up the clear, transparent revelations of the text and trusting them to work within the opera form.”

The Little Prince sketch by Maria Bjornson.

“I had an interesting conversation about this with James Fenton, the fine English poet and original librettist on Les Miserables. He said, ‘I strongly recommend writing an opera libretto to anyone who is getting above themselves because it reminds you of just how unimportant you are.’ This is true. Composers write operas. Who ever heard of Da Ponte’s Marriage of Figaro? You serve, you provide the stuff they need and from time to time you inspire. This is very good for one’s character.”

Mr. Wright admitted that he was unfamiliar with Ms. Portman’s work prior to this experience. Nonetheless, the collaboration quickly established a good and productive rhythm. “I did a treatment which Rachel, Francesca and I all agreed to and then I started lyricizing. What generally happened after that was Rachel would find that what I had done was interesting enough for her to start composing. Often, her inspiration would take her somewhere I hadn’t imagined. Then she would come back to me asking for words, which would fit her music. The quick answer to the question is that it is a dynamic process, one in which we gave the other what we thought was needed. But in reality, we often gave more than that, so that the other had to accept or reconsider. Lyrics, scores and CDs went backwards and forwards many times. On a practical note, a lot of this was done by email. And it so happens that we live within a five-minute walk with each other in London. So, it was extremely easy for me to walk up the road, ring her doorbell and spend ten minutes with her around the piano.”

When asked if he has any desires to work on other operas, Mr. Wright answered with a resounding, “Yes! I am thinking about something with the British composer Jonathan Dove that may or may not happen.” What’s the subject? “I will let you know when we have one.”

Desert island music? “These questions are quite fun,” he admitted. “You flatter me on my musical knowledge.” Wright mentions a well-known British radio program called “Desert Island Disks” where celebrities answer precisely this question. “Appearance on the program is considered quite an accolade,” he noted.

“Most of us can only dream. I would take lots of singing: the Callas/Bernstein Medea, the Kleiber/Lisa della Casa Figaro, a lot of Handel—especially Theodora and Ariodante, Act 2 of The Valkyrie, Hansel and Gretel and The Cunning Little Vixen. I would take La Bohème to sing along to, Les Noces to dance to, La Belle Helene to cheer myself up and some Poulenc songs, especially ‘Nous Avons Fait La Nuit,’ Marian Anderson singing ‘Oh Rest in the Lord,’ Barbara Cook’s Carnegie Hall LP and [Judy] Holiday’s ‘Trouble is a Man.’”

Disliked composer? “I find everything by Berg incredibly beautiful and challenging but after five minutes my brain hurts and I have to stop. When I am old and patient I will listen to him for days.”

Little Prince Photo Gallery

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