The Children's Choir of the Fundación Gran Canaria Philharmonic Orchestra participates in this production from Modena.

 

The Auditorio de Tenerife is a cultural venue linked to the Department of Culture of Tenerife Island's Council managed by its island's Minister of Culture, Enrique Arriaga. Now, it presents this season's Opera en Familia proposal, “The little sweep”. The performances of this work by Benjamin Britten take place on Saturday, April 15 at 6.00 p.m. and on Sunday 16 at 12:00 noon, and they include fragments spoken in Spanish and parts sung in English with surtitles.

This production by the Fondazione Teatro Comunale di Modena will have the stage direction by Stefano Monti, a veteran Italian director who is also responsible for the stage design and costumes. As for the music, Maya Barsacq, Franco-American orchestra conductor, composer, and former singer, will conduct the Tenerife Symphony Orchestra. The team is completed by Andrea Ricci as a lighting designer.

The cast includes Alicante soprano Carmen Mateo as Juliet Brook, Chilean baritone Ramiro Maturana as Black Bob, the chimney sweep, and the coachman Tom, Spanish contralto Mar Campo as the housekeeper, Miss Baggott, soprano Laura del Río as the governess Rowan, and Canarian tenor Mario Méndez as the chimney sweep's assistant Clem and the gardener Alfred.

The voices of the soloists are joined by those of the Children's Choir of the Fundación Gran Canaria Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by the maestra Marcela Garrón, whose training has produced the child soloists who star in this opera and its covers:  Gonzalo Santana, Matías Fernández, Nahia del Carmen Martín, Aurora Blanco, Lucas Quintana, Ángela Suárez, Natalia Domato, Alejandra Peña, Jimena García, Elena Blanco and Victoria Aragoneses.

In addition to shows for the general public, the Educational and Social Department of the Auditorio de Tenerife is offering a school session on Thursday 13 at 11:00 that will bring together more than 1,500 pupils.

“The little sweep” is an opera for children that constitutes the second part of a stage production entitled Make an Opera! It closes this show for young people that is created with the aim of making children familiar with the genre while also providing a very suitable subject for educating this audience: child exploitation. Let's Make an Opera! began as a spoken piece, but it underwent radical changes over its first few months, with three different versions including a written version for radio.

The first part, the prelude to “The little sweep”, presents a group of amateur performers who create and stage an opera based on events experienced at the start of the 19th century by Juliet Brook, the great-grandmother of one of the main characters of the introduction and who stars in the second part.

“The little sweep”, composed by Benjamin Britten and with a libretto by Eric Crozier, premièred in 1949 at the Aldeburgh festival (England). The story, which takes place at the start of the 19th century, in 1810 to be more precise, tells the story of Sam, an eight-year-old boy in Victorian England, enslaved by two people who force him to clean chimneys in deplorable conditions and how another group of children, with the involvement of several adults, help him to escape this situation. Britten was inspired by two poems by the artist William Blake, devoted to the work of young chimney sweeps (The Chimney Sweeper).

The Opera de Tenerife is an initiative organised by the Island Council through the Auditorio de Tenerife with the collaboration of the ICDC (Regional Institute of Cultural Development) and the INAEM (National Institute of Performing Arts and Music).

The tickets can be purchased at a single price of €10 on the website www.auditoriodetenerife.com, at the auditorium's box office or by dialling the phone number 902 317 327 from Monday to Friday from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Saturdays from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Check the special discounts for the audience under 30 years of age, students, unemployed and large families.