‘O’ for operetta or opera

Doting papas and mamas who wish to mold their brat in tune to their hearts’ desire would want to make of the young teener a cultured gentleman-in-progress who can listen to classical music with rapture and not doze off in boredom when he hears a coloratura soprano romancing the high Es with an operatic aria.

They have sound reasons to pursue their intention in earnest: To wrest the boy from the clutches of gangmates who might lure him to the forbidden pleasures of shabu, cocaine and Ecstasy; to wean him from the attraction of J-Lo and Britney Spears, M2M, 2Be3, A1, D-12 and their ilk; and to win him over from the allure of the busty broad of a labandera from Leyte whom he might put his dirty paws on and knock her up and get his throat and the rest of the family slit in the dead of the night by the Waray-Waray Gang.

How are you to go about getting your li’l precious to listen to opera? Don’t scare him right off with works the names of which composers sound like they come from the menu of Sbarro or Deli France. How do you convince him it’s not what H. L. Mencken calls "just so much hog-calling"?

Here are three easy steps to convert the apple of your eye into an opera buff.

One: Buy him compact discs of operettas and operas in English.

Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance (EMI CMS7 64409-2) is a tuneful farce with an outrageous plot about swashbuckling buccaneers battling policemen, but who are really sons of noblemen who have strayed away from the law. They are pardoned by Queen Victoria and the Major-General marries off the leaders to his daughters. Just watch your youngster prick his ears when he hears the chorus of pirates roar the familiar "Hail! Hail! The gang’s all here."

Sigmund Romberg’s The Student Prince (TER Classics CDTER2 1172) is a bittersweet romance about Prince Karl Franz at the University of Heidelberg who falls in love with a pretty tavern maid, Gretchen, whom he can never wed. The plot dwell on the pains and pleasures of student life with pangs of nostalgic longing for those golden days. The score has all the charm of Viennese operetta with a soulful serenade, love duets, a drinking song and choral numbers including what may be considered the national anthem of students since the middle ages, Gaudeamus igitur.

George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess (EMI CDS7 49568-2-4) is a heart-tugging tale of two lost souls in a black ghetto in South Carolina, a bleak slum called Catfish Row, who find each other and try to cling to one another for support and strength. When Bess tries to free herself from the clutches of her boyfriend, he becomes violent and Porgy, a cripple, kills the scumbag. When Sporting Life, a drug pusher, attempts to enslave Bess with his happy dust, she escapes to New York. When Porgy is released from prison, he sets out to recover his love in the big city. Your boy will not fall asleep to the lullaby "Summertime." He can’t simply remain unmoved by "Bess, yo is my woman now," "It ain’t necessarily so," "I got plenty of nuttin’" and a lot of other tunes. The recording recommended above is one for the ages. It has Willard White and Cynthia Haymon in the title roles and brilliant young Simon Rattle conducting the London Philharmonic.

Gian Carlo Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors (TER Classics CD TER 124) is about a crippled boy who lives in a hovel in a village outside Bethlehem. Three strangers bearing gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh for the infant King of Kings stop by to rest for the night from their long journey from their kingdoms in the East. Amahl’s mother steals some of the gold, and in a very touching aria, explains the reason for her crime – to seek healing for her son’s infirmity. Composed in a simple musical idiom, this one-act opera cannot leave your son untouched unless he is an unfeeling dolt.

Two: Introduce your lad to works that require him to read the librettos in the English translation from French, German or Italian.

Johann Strauss Jr.’s Die Fledermaus (The Bat) (EMI 7243 5 66223 2 6) is a comic operetta with a plot about the shenanigans of people entangled in schemes of their own making. Infidelity, disguise, mistaken identities and a secret plot are all exposed during a grand New Year’s Eve ball in Prince Orlovsky’s palace. The comedy beats with the heart and spirit of imperial Vienna. In the recommended recording, Annelise Rothenberger, Nicolai Gedda and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau deliver a performance that bubbles like Austrian champagne. Your boy will certainly be intoxicated.

Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hansel und Gretel (EMI CDS 7 54022 2) brings back the Brothers Grimm’s familiar fairy tale about two young children lost in an enchanted forest who find the gingerbread house of a cannibalistic witch. The opera will not scare your kid shitless, but it will certainly bewitch him and his parents with its wonderland inhabited by the Sandman, the Dew Fairy and Guardian Angels, and its enchanting score. EMI’s superb recording features Anne-Sofie von Otter and Barbara Bonney in the title roles.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s The Magic Flute (EMI 0777 7 47951 8 0) is a symbolic Singspiel in which the composer defends Freemasonry against Christian attempts to subdue it, but you need not trouble your young son’s mind with all the hocus-pocus. Let him simply enjoy it as a fairy tale about Prince Tamino and his rescue of Pamina from her captor with the help of Papageno, the bird-man, and his magic flute. Watch your son’s eyes pop in disbelief when he hears the Queen of the Night’s vocal acrobatics tossed off with careless abandon by Edita Gruberova in the EMI recording. Lucia Popp and Siegfried Jerusalem play the lovers.

Richard Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos (Philips 422 084-2) fuses the seriousness of classical drama with the humor of commedia dell’arte in Nobel Prize winner Hugo Von Hofmannsthal’s libretto. Two groups entertaining their patron and his guests are made to present their shows at the same time so that they can both finish before the fireworks display. The first group presents the tale of Ariadne abandoned on the island of Naxos by Theseus. As she bemoans her fate waiting for death, she is heckled by the comedians. Greek myths never fail to fascinate the young as this opera surely will. The Philips recording offers the incredible voices of Jessye Norman as Ariadne and Gruberova as the star of the comic troupe, Zerbinetta, whose main aria is a long vocal pyrotechnics which is absolutely stunning.

Three: If your youngster is inclined to listen to operas in a more serious vein, then indulge them by all means.

Georges Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers (EMI CDS 7 49837 2) transports your boy to an exotic island in the Indian Ocean where Leila, the priestess of Brahma, is loved by two men who are bosom friends, Nadir and Zurga. The depth of this friendship is expressed in a duet which is one of the most beautiful in all operatic literature. The EMI recording stars Barbara Hendricks, John Aler and Gino Quilico as the romantic triangle in an unforgettable performance.

Giacomo Puccini’s Turandot (RCA Victor 09026626872) tells of the man-hating princess of China who vows to marry no man who cannot give the answer to her three enigmas. Anyone who tries and fails loses his head to the executioner’s axe. Calaf, the Tartar prince, answers her riddles and wins her love. A fairy tale with a happy ending but not without tears shed for the unhappy slave, Liu. The powerful cast of the recommended CD features Birgit Nilsson, Jussi Bjoerling and Renata Tebaldi. Definitely a recording for the ages.

These operettas and operas should make your son an opera fiend. Pray that they do – to keep his paws off the labandera and thus save the family from being slaughtered by the Waray-Waray Gang in the dead of night.

* * *

For comments and suggestions, contact jessqcruz@hotmail.com.