De Fabel van Ooh en Aah

an opera in one act by Andrew Wise based on a short story by Henk Pringels adapted by the author and the composer

Dramatis personae:

 

1. the girl: soprano, young, given to day-dreaming, her delicate shoulders carry the burden of a quite extraordinary talent, whispered in her ear by a little bird . . .

2. the voice fairy: mezzo-soprano, old, mysterious soothsayer, guardian and bestower of talents, her familiar -- a crow

3. the talent-spotter: tenor, makes a sport of hunting down extraordinary talent, swashbuckling opportunist in the Spanish style, bringer of illusion and disillusion . . .

4. the father: bass, baker in the village of “Ooh en Aah”, many a loaf baked and eaten . . .

5. the mother: mezzo-soprano crème patissière . . .

6. the boy/narrator: baritone, seller of lemons, secretly in love with a delicate girl with an extraordinary voice

7. the blackguard: bass, all brawn and no brain, destined to play the villain in naive fables . . .

 

Clarinet in B-flat/Bassoon/Trumpet in B-flat/Trombone/Violin/Contrabass/Percussion: 1 player (Vibraphone, Xylophone, Glockenspiel, Tubular Bell (low E-flat), snare drum, 4 tom-toms, castanets, tambourine, suspended cymbal, pair of cymbals, guiro, train whistle, tenor drum, 2 woodblocks, whip, maracas, triangle, 2 bongos

 

At the first performance on 11th June 2005 the girl was sung by Ilse Eerens, the voice fairy/mother by Mireille Capelle, the talent-spotter by Valentin Jar, the boy/narrator by Igor Bogaert and the father/blackguard by Piet Vansichen.

 

The Hermes Ensemble was conducted by Andrew Wise

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

English Synopsis

 

A baker and his wife have a daughter who is not much good at baking, but fantastic at singing. A mysterious "voice fairy" has given her an amazing vocal talent. A talent-spotter with a Spanisch moustache appears in the village and manages to persuade the reluctant parents and the eager soprano to let him take her on tour and make her rich and famous. On tour she sings and sings, higher and faster, urged on by the talent-spotter, in all the theatres they visit until, in the biggest, richest, most famous theatre, her vocal chords refuse to coöperate. Not a sound can she get out. The talent-spotter is beside himself with rage and abandons her in a fit of scorn and fury.

 

The mysterious "voice fairy" appears and explains to the girl in incomprehensible riddles how she has only herself to blame for her misfortunes. She has brought them upon herself through her overweening ambition. "Oh, what is to become of me!" cries the poor girl in despair and curls up on a convenient bench to sleep off her unhappiness. The voice fairy has repossessed the girl's vocal talent; now she has to pass it on to someone else. For reasons known only to herself she passes on the talent to a drunken tramp who has appeared, bent on relieving the girl of her last few possessions. The drunkard is rather pleased with his new vocal toy and imagines he can use it for his own villainous purposes. A good singing voice turns out however not to be a particularly useful tool for breaking and entering.

 

Up to this point the fable has been narrated as a flashback by the Boy, who has of course been secretly in love with our soprano all along. Now we are in the present. The Boy sells fruit, lemons in particular, at market, where he runs into the voice fairy, rather down in the dumps about her singular lack of success in finding the right human bearer of the talent it is her duty to bestow. He wonders what has happened to the girl he loves for the voice fairy seems to know something about her. "Lemons . . . . ," the voice fairy thinks to herself . . . and all of a sudden the Boy finds himself singing Goethe with a beautiful baritone voice, so beautiful that our soprano wakes from her reverie, realises where she went wrong with all that Opera nonsense and joins him in the last verse, in spite of the talent-spotter, who has appeared again like a greedy jack-in-the-box to tempt our new singing hero with fame and fortune. Our pair of lovers sing sweet nothings to each other for a while but the kiss we all expect is interrupted by the Finale, in which each of the characters presents his own moral of this incomprehensible story: the talent-spotter gives up on singers and decides to represent trombonists; the drunkard says he would rather have a crowbar than a good voice, and so on. In the end the moral is perhaps that there's talent enough in the world for everyone if you only know what it is when you have it.