Search - Susan Graham, Isabel Leonard, Paul Gay :: Ravel: L'Enfant et les SortilSges; Shhrazade; Alborada del Gracioso

The curtain rises on a tranquil, old-fashioned sitting-room in an ancient Normandy farmhouse, which opens onto a country garden. Armchairs and a grandfather clock offset a pastoral tapestry wall-covering, and a hanging cage containing a pet squirrel. A fire burns quietly in the grate, and above it a kettle simmers, its purring almost indistinguishable from that of the cat. It is afternoon.
A six- or seven-year-old child is being thoroughly dilatory over his homework. His mother enters and chides him for his laziness, after which, alone again, he flies into a perverse rage. He begins to attack all the objects in the room, including the squirrel and the cat, and even beats the fire with a poker, and in so doing upsets the kettle. The poker is then used to slash the pretty figures on the tapestry, after which he silences the clock, and finally destroys his school books, shouting with joy: I m free, I m free!
The child sinks exhausted into a large, floral-designed armchair, and is most surprised when it speaks and moves. Other strange things happen: the broken furniture and the abused animals start to reprove him, becoming larger than life, one by one. A black Wedgwood teapot and a Chinese teacup use their moment of mortality to improvise a tea-for-two-ish ragtime duet, which is only halted by the coloratura uprising of the offended fire. The characters from the tapestry begin to speak, and his favourite Princess appears from the child s torn storybook, before his mathematics homework finally rises up to confront him in the form of impossible problems and bizarre solutions. Thoroughly unnerved, the child is not in the least surprised when the cat begins to sing a Tristan-like love duet with his mate from the garden.
The scene changes, and the child finds himself in the beautiful garden, which is now endowed with a night-time magic. There are many trees and flowers, among which tiny animal and insect noises are heard: tree-frogs, toads, owls and nightingales all break the silence of the enchanted place. The child is filled with joy, enraptured by the magic garden, but the moment is short-lived. He is instantly silenced by a tree, groaning over old wounds once inflicted by the childs penknife. A dragonfly laments its lost mate, killed long ago by the child. A bat and a squirrel also relate cruelty suffered at his hands, and try to warn a rather stupid frog of the impending danger.
The animals dance, and the once-caged squirrel comes to the child, rebuking and reminding him that the freedom of the sky and the wind is but a reflection of the squirrel s own blue eyes. The child, upset and frightened, whimpers for his mother, and angry trees and other animals close in. Suddenly, a small, wounded squirrel comes forward, and the child, in remorse and with innate kindness, binds its cut paw. The other animals are impressed, and begin to whisper and then cry the same words as the child: Maman! Maman! As they do so, a light appears in the window of the house, and the child walks open-armed, towards his mother as the animals and trees sing a chorus of praise. The child is forgiven.
Simon Wright