Let’s Make an Opera!

This operatic entertainment for young people starts in the form of a play, with a group of children preparing an opera, a Victorian tale called The Little Sweep. Then comes the opera itself. Prix Italia-winning director Petr Weigl adds yet another ‘frame’ to Britten’s original in the form of his own zany preamble: a surreal, slapstick sequence introducing a cast of quirky characters who later form the audience for the children’s performance. He sets his film at the turn of the nineteenth century with elegant period costumes and settings.