KVT – Magic Spells Cast at the Opera House

KVT is ravel-ed up in pure magic by the French

It was about the best of the best we’ve had in Hanoi this year!

And what a huge treat the French gave us at Nha Hat Lon last week. My biggest regret is that I was busy on Wednesday evening and could only get to the grand old House once to see Ravel’s little lyric opera ‘L’Enfant et les Sortliges‘ -translated as The Child and the Spells or The Bewitched Child. Had it been on for a week then I’d have been a regular attendee.

I usually give most things with kids in a wide berth. Nowadays we get such cutsey wootsie crap with cutsey wootsie little gargoyley moppetts and poppets on TV and stage that my insides start wobbling alarmingly at the thought of them (or is it the thought of their widely smiling parents and assorted relatives?).

But knowing that the little opera was being staged under the very creditable auspices of the very famous Mairtise des Haut des Seine I just knew it would be brilliant…and it was.

When I saw all of those kids from ankle biters to troublesome teens tumbling into seats before the theater lights went down I must admit my heart sank a lot….but the show was so riveting (albeit in French, sung in funny opera voices, and with funny live classical music circa 1920) that about 99.9% of the kids in the audience were stuck dumb and attentive and few suffered wormy squirmy attacks.

The scenario is about a spoilt rotten kid who destroys or tortures just about everything it comes into contact with (probably rings a few bells for a couple of kids you may know in your neighborhood!) and over whom the parents have no control (familiar?) and who won’t do its homework. The rotten kid can’t get her own way (the kid can be read as he or she and in this show it was a lumpy girl child beautifully acted and gloriously sung by a mezzo soprano) and destroys and tortures everything in reach and then…..lo and behold… all the inanimate objects come to life and torment the child…fabulous staging with arm chairs, books, fireplaces, books etc, all singing dancing and acting in ways that make you gasp. Then when the shepherd and shepherdess wallpaper figures started their marvellous progression in front of and behind the scrim curtain (there must have been 30 in all), you were really held spellbound.

Act one ends with two mistreated cats making their singing presence felt in totally magnifique style.

Act 2 saw us in the middle of a sylvan garden and about 100 young people cavort as delightful frogs, squirrels, butterflies, dragonflies, singing trees, plus plus. Every stage director, designer, choreographer, costume designer and wanna be actor in town should have been forced to see it! No pretty pretty pie in sight, no sighs of ‘Oh how cute those little kids trying to be froglets are’…just wide eyed delight.