Private School News

PRINCE CASPIAN

Last week children in Years 3, 4 and 8 at Farlington School performed in an impressive operatic production of Prince Caspian by CS Lewis, commissioned by Opera Brava. What made this such an extraordinary event was the fact that until one week before, none of the participants had seen a script or heard any music – they literally started from scratch on Monday morning. With rehearsals all day, every day during that week (with time out to make masks and costumes), it was full-steam ahead to learn script, songs and choreography under the expert tuition of the Opera Brava team, ably aided by members of the Prep School Staff and the Maintenance team.

The final performance was staged on Friday afternoon, during which members of the audience were immediately set to work to learn a song so that they could be part of King Miraz’s nasty army. Three Opera Brava artists took the parts of the Narrator (Amanda Buckland), King Miraz (Daniel Meades), and Aslan (Geoffrey Moses) and the performance started with Peter (Amy Rowlinson), Susan (Amy Milne), Edmund (Abbey Marsden) and Lucy (Olivia Middleton) on the train on the way back to school. The train was evoked very strongly with the whole company spreading into the audience down the aisles singing “Chugga Chugga WooWoo”.

What was so impressive was the way all the girls coped with the variety of songs and techniques. Many girls had solo lines to sing, and their confidence and ability was quite remarkable.

Opera Brava is to be congratulated for its obvious dedication, talent, organisation, professionalism and enthusiasm which resulted in such a wonderful experience on the Friday. The production was also very rewarding in that it provided girls from the Prep School and Senior School with a unique opportunity to work together and get to know each other until, by the end of the week, the whole company was working as a team.

For many of the girls this was their first taste of opera and they are extremely lucky to have had such an amazing opportunity to work with such professionals. It is a memory that they will cherish for many years to come.