Rachel Portman journeyed by camel through the Sahara desert when she began composing her opera The Little Prince. She wanted to know what it felt like to be stranded in that desolate land, like the downed pilot in Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s beloved book. “I needed to listen to the sound of the desert,” recalls Portman, who has composed more than 70 film scores and was the first woman composer to win an Oscar for original music (for Emma in 1996). “It was a gentle breeze. I wanted to capture the feeling of all that in the music,” Portman says. “And I wanted to see the stars at night.”

But cinematic atmosphere is just one among the attractions Portman captured in her adaptation of the 1943 book. Operas for children are rare; Portman wanted to go one better with a production that would delight both kids and adults, and she chose the perfect subject. Saint-Exupéry’s classic tells the charming story of a pilot who, stranded in the desert, encounters a preternaturally wise boy from a tiny planet.

At first publication, The Little Prince befuddled Saint-Exupéry fans and critics with its childlike simplicity. The boy tells the pilot of his adventures traveling from planet to planet, encountering all stripes of foolish and selfish characters while longing for his beloved rose. The cast is whimsical: a talking fox who warns that “you become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed” and a snake who offers a fatal bite that will send the Little Prince home. But time has proven that the book’s philosophically profound lessons can stir even the most knowing parents. “It’s about the afterlife,” acclaimed director Francesca Zambello says. “That’s what the Little Prince represents. Or about connecting with your subconscious. There are so many interpretations. But at bottom, it’s a joyful piece, a celebration of life.”

It might seem that The Little Prince’s power as pure fantasy is behind the opera’s overwhelming popularity since its 2003 debut at the Houston Grand Opera, with performances everywhere from New York to Lithuania, including one recorded by the BBC. The late Maria Bjørnson’s whimsical sets create an airy pastel landscape with all kinds of surprise doors and unexpected perches for such crazy creatures as walking, talking baobab trees. The stage dressing has fewer big effects than many operas but never skimps on delight, from hunters with gigantic potbellies to a golden-haired, exuberantly petalled rose.

Amid all the visual bedazzlement, kids also get the message, attests Portman, a mother of three. “Even children understand that the Little Prince has died. My daughter was very, very moved by the moment when the Prince left,” the British-born composer says by phone from Minneapolis, where she was working with Zambello on a new musical based on the Little House on the Prairie books.

page 1 | 2