The Little Sweep

Opera for children in two acts

Libretto by Eric Crozier, Russian text by Irina Maslennikova, dialogue text by Olga Enns

The opera was written in 1949. This version was first performed in Perm in 2012.

This was the first production of the Perm Opera and Ballet Theatre’s Children’s Studio 25 years ago. In the run-up to Britten’s centenary, The Little Sweep returned to the Perm stage in a new guise. According to the producers’ concept, the young artists decide to stage, without the help of adults, an opera about eight-year-old Sam, who is slighted by lazy, cruel adult sweeps. The classic ‘theatre within a theatre’ device makes it possible to create the sensation of an old picture set in a modern frame: the children dream up the opera about the rescue of the little sweep in old England at one of the studio’s rehearsals.

Age category: 6+