The Little Prince's Great Reach

Like all great children’s books, The Little Prince has always had something to say to adults. Those who first experienced Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s classic novella as young readers find themselves returning to it again and again, drawn by the universal themes contained in this magical story of a boy who is lost, found, and transformed by love. Those themes have long been of interest to opera composers as well, so no one should have been surprised when, in 2003, The Little Prince became an opera. Composed by Rachel Portman, with a libretto by playwright Nicholas Wright, it received its premiere in a Houston Grand Opera production directed by Francesca Zambello. Now the opera is making its West Coast debut May 2-11 at Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall. The Little Prince will be co-presented by Cal Performances and San Francisco Opera. Zambello’s production, with sets and costumes by the late Maria Bjornson, will be directed by Sarah Meyers and conducted by Sara Jobin. The cast includes baritone Eugene Brancoveanu as the Pilot, tenor Thomas Glenn as the Snake, and soprano Ji Young Yang as the Rose. Tyler Polen and Tovi Wayne alternate in the title role.

Portman’s opera was written with children in mind. Yet, like Saint-Exupery’s original, it seems to appeal to music lovers of all ages. Meyers, who has been involved with the opera since its premiere (she was Zambello’s assistant in Houston and directed the production at the New York City Opera in 2005), says that Portman’s adaptation lets the book’s core messages shine through. "It’s about life being more than practicality,” says Meyers. "That’s the essence of the story: that what we love is important, and everything else is secondary. The big moments in our lives — when someone is born, or when you lose a loved one — bring you back to this idea, this initial understanding of the world, that the only things that matter are the things that we love. And this production is faithful to that vision.”

Reencountering a Prince

Like many readers, Meyers first experienced The Little Prince as a child. Working on the opera, she says, "was like getting to know the book all over again. "I understand it in a whole new way now," she says. "It’s an amazing story that way. As a child, you read it as entertainment, but as an adult it means a whole lot more. The production really matches the ideas of the original. There’s a sort of simplistic initial presentation, very much like the illustrations in the book. It all operates from a large portal in front of the stage. But the production just goes incredibly deep." The same thing, she says, can be said of Portman’s score. "Initially, it seems simplistic, but it has the ability to present these emotions and complicated thoughts in a really beautiful way." First published in 1943 as Le Petit Prince (the next edition, translated into English as The Little Prince, was released the following year), Saint-Exupery’s book about a youthful interstellar traveler was an instant classic. The French author and aviator — a pioneer in aerial desert explorations — had enjoyed moderate success with his previous books, which included essays, fictionalized accounts of his adventures (such as Night Flight), and an autobiographical account of a dangerous wartime mission (Flight to Arras). With his children’s novella, which featured his own illustrations, he achieved international acclaim. Translated into 180 languages, The Little Prince became one of the 50 best-selling books of all time.

Saint-Exupery’s personal mystique may have had something to do with the book’s success. The author-pilot disappeared in 1944 on a World War II reconnaissance mission. After taking off from the island of Corsica in a Lockheed Lightning P-38, he was never heard from again. It’s a story that rivals Amelia Earhart’s as one of the most intriguing aviation legends of the 20th century, and also the subject of speculation over the years: that he had been shot down, crash-landed, was taken prisoner, or even committed suicide. (Saint-Exupery’s story continues to develop. In 1998, a fisherman, Jean-Claude Bianco, found a silver bracelet bearing the author’s name off the coast of Marseille. The remains of Saint-Exupery’s plane were found nearby. The author’s body was never found, but in 2006, a German World War II pilot claimed that he had been the one who shot him down — a claim that has yet to be verified.) Regardless of its author’s fate, the story of the Little Prince caught the imagination of readers everywhere. The title character, a junior adventurer-philosopher, meets a pilot — modeled, many believe, after the author himself — who has crash-landed in the desert. Beneath the story’s fantasy adventures and whimsical characters are a wise understanding of the value of faith, love, and humanity. Portman wasn’t the first to adapt The Little Prince; there was a 1974 Stanley Donen film, with music by Lerner and Loewe, starring Gene Wilder and Bob Fosse. The story was also used as the basis of a previous opera, and an animated television series. Still, Portman’s adaptation may be one of the most successful contemporary operas of its day. Since the Houston premiere in 2003, Zambello’s staging has been remounted in Boston, Milwaukee, and Tulsa, as well as New York. There was a concert version in London and a revival in Houston, a BBC film, and a staging in Lithuania. Meyers says the production has been slightly modified along the way. "With every production, the piece tends to grow," she says. "It develops new detail, and each new person who sings the part brings heart and new ideas to it. It really matures every time we do it, and the changes have been gradual, except before New York, where we had some large musical cuts to reduce the running time and also to streamline the first act. When you have a young audience, it’s good to keep it moving. “Here, we’re adding a few enhancements. But it will be very similar to its past incarnations.”

Composer’s Journey From Film to Stage

The Little Prince is Portman’s first opera, but the British composer has extensive experience in the world of film. She was the first woman to win an Academy Award for film composing (in 1997, for the score of Emma), and she was nominated for Oscars for The Cider House Rules and Chocolat. The Oxford-trained composer’s music can also be heard in films including Oliver Twist, The Joy Luck Club, Ethan Frome, and Benny and Joon. Jobin, a former assistant conductor at San Francisco Opera (who made history in 2004 as the first woman to conduct a mainstage production at the War Memorial Opera House), will lead six performances in Berkeley. Under her baton will be nine principal singers, a 30-piece ensemble drawn from the San Francisco Opera Orchestra, and a 24-member children’s chorus. Reached during a break in rehearsals, the conductor said Portman’s score impressed her. “It’s not complicated, but it is very effective,” she says. It really works for getting the feelings across. She understands voices, and writes well for the voice." Portman employs distinctive themes throughout the opera, adds Jobin. “There’s an imagination theme at the beginning; it’s a five-note figure that starts and comes back later, when we’re talking about imagination. There’s also a sunset theme connected with the Little Prince, because he loves sunsets. And the Pilot has a leitmotif that comes back at the end.” For Jobin, working with the children in the cast has been one of the greatest rewards. “We have two really strong Little Princes,” she says. “They’re each 12 years old, and they’re both great. And the kids in the chorus are wonderful. Working with these kids is really making me think, ‘When did I become a grownup?’ Because being a grownup is not really a good thing in this opera. We’re calling the adult cast members ‘adults,’ not grownups. “It’s a great piece that way, because it kind of resets your clock. It makes you think about the good parts of childhood, about seeing with imaginative eyes, and what happens to us as we get older. It really brings you back to what it’s all about. It’s very enlightening, and it’s not that often that we get to spend our time on operas that enrich our lives in a positive way. Operas are usually about love, and death, and tragedy, and 17th-century women going ‘help me, help me.’ It’s nice to spend time on something so simple and so beautiful.” As Meyers has traveled with the production, she says she’s come to see The Little Prince as an opera for everyone. “It’s difficult for me to think of this as a children’s opera,” she says. “It’s an opera with a lot of children in it, and children love it, but it’s not for them exclusively. Over and over again, the people who come away most affected are the adults who see it, and the adults who work on it. We’ve all been transformed by the experience of being part of it.”