Word: babar
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Died. Nicolai Berezowsky, 53, prize-winning Russian-born composer (Symphony No. 4 and the children's opera, Babar the Elephant) and veteran guest conductor; of undetermined causes; in Manhattan...
...three propositions : 1) besides Humperdinck's heavy-handed Hansel and Gretel, there are precious few operas acceptable to children; 2) Scherman's Little Orchestra Society is always ready & willing to tackle a new score; and 3) the adventures of a young and appealingly unsophisticated elephant named Babar* are bread & butter to large numbers of children and ex-children. With Mrs. Berezowsky they worked out sketches, got Dorothy (Porgy) Heyward to try her hand at a libretto. The result, after nearly two years: the premiere last week at Manhattan's Hunter College of a children's opera...
...people wearing elephant heads -and the show was on. The story took the little elephant from his African jungle to the big city, into a school ("Good children in the front, bad children in the back"), into virtual slavery in a circus, and finally back into the jungle, where Babar married the princess, became king, and lived happily ever after...
...youngsters seemed to like it all very much. But the life or death of a new children's opera depends pretty much on capricious oldsters. Babar seems to stand a better chance than most : the Little Orchestra plans to do a repeat performance in Newark, N.J. this week, and radio & TV folks are interested...
...Created by the late Jean de Brunhoff and perpetuated by his son Laurent, The Story of Babar, The Travels of Babar, Babar the King, and six other sequels have sold more than 2,000,000 copies...