Chincha-Chancha Cooroo
Hughes
W11 Opera
Britten Theatre
Royal College of Music
Nabanita Sircar
December 25th 2006
Lore of the East
Librettist William Radice and composer Bernard Hughes have successfully adapted a Bengali children's story to English opera
"Opera is an 18th- and 19th-century art that must find a 20th-century audience," the famous Swedish director and opera manager Goeran Gentele once said. In the same vein, the W11 Opera in London saw just how beautifully an old Indian tale has been woven into an elegant English opera for a modern British audience.
During the British Raj, in India, Upendrakishore Raychaudhuri, grandfather of Satyajit Ray, had written the celebrated children's book Tuntunir Boi in 1910. He would never have imagined that a century later, one of the collection's tales, Boka Jolar Golpo (The Story of the Foolish Weaver and the Jackal), would find expression in Britain as Chincha-Chancha Cooroo (The Weaver's Wedding), an English children's opera.
At the Royal College of Music's Britten hall, youngsters between eight and 18, depicting myriad animals and birds, recently enthralled the audience in repeat performances-a rarity in the W11 Opera's 36-year history. ' It was a dream-come-true for librettist William Radice, who had read the original story and translated it into English in 1981. "It was the first Bengali book I had read on my own. I felt the story, with its thousands of birds and animals forming a wedding procession, could be a wonderful children's opera," says Radice, a poet, translator, and scholar of Bengali language teaching at School of Oriental and African Studies. "And it has turned out just as I wanted. It's magical. I hope there will be future productions."
The young composer Bernard Hughes was thrilled by the challenge the opera offered. "I was keen to write a piece that had subtle Indian nuances. I have used the rhythm of 5/7, which is very Indian," he said.
Hughes, also a music teacher, teaches "a bit of Indian music at schools-which is part of the curriculum-but I did not have much knowledge of it. William lent me a recording of Tagore's music." Western instruments like the piano and harphave been used, along with the tabla. As Radice said, "We were not aiming at fusion music. It is an English opera."
In one scene where the weaver strums the sitar, the strings of the cello were used to produce the sound. "It is a parody on how the sitar sounds to western ears," explains Radice.
Representatives of the North Cambridge Family Opera, Boston, US, who attended the show, "were so impressed, that they have decided to do it in April 2008," informs Radice, and adds, "I want to do it in Germany," where "the musical text will have a simpler version for orchestral score."
The opera will also return to the land of its writer, West Bengal. Debashish Raychaudhuri, a singer and theatre person, was sponsored by the British Council to attend the rehearsals in London. Unlike the performance in London, "We will use professional adults for the principal roles. I will take it back to Bengal, but retain the European operatic nuances," he said.
It remains to be seen if Indian audiences will take to the idea as readily as the British.
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