Baltimore Opera Company

Study Guide

Tosca

Children's Choruses in Opera

Opera goers are used to hearing the fully developed voices of men and women as the primary instruments of opera. Ever aware of the full palette of sounds in the musical spectrum, many composers have written choruses in which children sing, taking advantage of that singular color both dramatically and musically.

The sound of the unchanged voice, while not as potentially powerful as the adult voice, nevertheless has carrying power and its sometimes strident, vibrato-less sound adds a wonderful new dimension to an opera's vocal texture. In most cases children are included in operas because of the dramatic necessity contained in plot, but also composers are eager to use that sound (somewhat approximated as the French " voix blanch ”) in simply an instrumental fashion.

Puccini uses the voices of children to marvelous effect in Tosca , when the choir boys celebrate Napoleon's defeat. In a scene of constantly building excitement, the sacristan promises them a new cantata and more money ( "doppio soldo! "). Puccini uses the brilliance of their voices to a tremendous climax when their joy is squelched by the entrance of Scarpia, who berates the boys for their inappropriate behavior in church. Later, the boys join (in their most powerful vocal register) with the adult chorus in the grand Te Deum that closes the first act.

Puccini must have been quite fond of children's voices. A shepherd boy has an extended solo at the beginning of the last act of Tosca , and the child's solo in the 2nd act of La Bohème - " Vo' la tromba, il cavalin " - always brings down the house. As a chorus children also appear prominently in La Bohème , and Turandot has a wonderful children's chorus, in which the sound of their voices adds a disembodied androgyny to the prevailing exoticism.

Children's choruses are most prominent in the repertory of the 19th century. Verdi uses children to sing a hymn of praise to Desdemona in Otello. Leoncavallo's Pagliacci has a group of children agog over the traveling players, requiring as much acting prowess as singing ability.

The angelic sound of the unchanged voice finds them utilized in scenes of a religious nature. Boito's Mefistofele contains a tremendously difficult vocal scherzo for children representing the seraphim of heaven, in counterpoint with the voices of the other angels and phalanxes of heaven. Wagner uses boys' voices to add sanctity to the Rite of Communion in Act of Parsifal, and Humperdinck invokes the sound of guardian angels in the first act of Hänsel und Gretel.

The French repertory includes, of course, the street urchins in Bizet's Carmen, who comically swagger in imitation of the guards. A more poignant note is struck in Massenet's Werther, in which the title character's suicide is accompanied by children singing a Christmas carol outside his window.

Richard Strauss uses children in a comical way in Der Rosenkavalier, where Baron Ochs' final comeuppance is heightened by a group of children being paid to harass him as being his illegitimate offspring. Alban Berg's use of children in Wozzeck is grotesque, when they appear in the last scene to tell Marie's child that his mother is dead.

The twentieth century has seen an explosion in operas written specifically for children, many of which contain opportunities for child soloists and choruses. Opera from the standard repertoire are being reworked (i.e.: transposed, edited) for performances by children. One of the first operas to be treated this way was Aida, although one might wonder about the success of a 12 year old girl hurling Amneris' imprecations to a group of adolescent Egyptian priests!

The drama and sometimes fantastical elements of opera are bound to appeal to young people, and any opportunity for children to be involved in the performance of opera, on either side of the footlights, is certain to help in the continuity of the art form.

- James Harp

 

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