220 schoolchildren, from CM2 to 3rd, deserted their establishment for a morning to sit on the grass, near the Guillaumet gymnasium, to attend an exceptional performance. In a miniature setting, animated by four zealous stagehands, experts in visual change, four opera singers, two men and two women, accompanied by an accordionist, played for more than an hour and without sound a concentrate of the famous opera of Mozart The Magic Flute.
This cultural initiative is to the credit of the Théâtre du Capitole in its desire to bring opera to a novice audience. Among the young people, Blagnac schoolchildren who came to the college as part of the CM2-6th grade link, two 4th grade classes with Stéphane Morpelli, their visual arts teacher (because they had worked on the scenography of the work) and, at the end of their optional year, the 42 students of the Les Colibris choir and their choir director Céline Pons, who had distinguished themselves at the opening of the Luluberlu festival.
Sylvie Clanet, the show’s stage manager on the tour, explains: “One of the goals is to bring the opera to places where the students would never come to Toulouse, in the depths of Aveyron, in the Gers. The show travels in a traveling bus that tours the academy’s establishments.”
A new tour next year
The first experience of this type was built two years ago around the “Barber of Seville”, with the Figaro bus, for around a hundred performances. The Magic Flute and the Papageno Bus, named after a character in the opera, in a version sung in French for greater understanding, completes its first year with around fifty performances in schools, colleges and small venues for all audiences . He will continue his tour with the same protagonists next year.
Lucie and Camille, 5th grade students, appreciated: “The artists sang very well and we understood the words, which is not always the case. There were small passages in German but it was funny. The sets were very beautiful and it makes you want to go there for real, even with a duration of three to four hours.”
The final song was taken up by the students who had worked on it in class.
