The Enchanted Pig
A Young Vic and The Opera Group co-production
Contents
Page number
1. Source of the Story
2
2. Fairy Tales Timeline
5
3. Original and Similar Stories
9
4. From Fate to Fairytales
19
5. Sun, Moon and Wind
22
6. Pigs!
29
7. Opera and Musical Theatre
31
8. Synopsis
37
9. Cast and Creative Team
40
10. Interview with director, John Fulljames
41
11. Interview with writer Alasdair Middleton
42
12. Interview with composer Jonathan Dove
44
13. Interview with musical supervisor Stuart Stratford
46
14. Interview with designer Dick Bird
47
15. Costume Designs
49
16. Assistant Director’s Diary
56
17. Further Reading
63
If you have any comments or questions about this Resource Pack, please contact us:
The Young Vic, 66 The Cut, London SE1 8LZ
T: 0207 922 2800
F: 0207 922 2801
E: info@youngvic.org
Written by Kate Wild
© Young Vic 2006
First performed at the Young Vic on 2 December 2006
1
1. THE SOURCE OF THE STORY
Fairy or folk stories come from an oral (or spoken) tradition. They are passed on from generation to generation and
each time they are told they change and develop, taking elements from other stories and developing them to suit
their current audience. Because of this, it is hard to know where a story first came from. Occasionally, however,
someone collects and writes down the stories they hear. This literary (or written) tradition provides a breadcrumb
trail which allows us to trace the development of some of our most treasured fairy stories.
The libretto (or words) of the Young Vic’s opera The Enchanted Pig is drawn from two written sources. The first half
of the story is based on a Romanian folk tale of the same name; the second half on a Norwegian folk story called
East of the Sun and West of the Moon.
The first English version of The Enchanted Pig appeared in Andrew Lang’s 1890 anthology The Red Fairy Book.
Lang read the story in a book of Romanian Fairy Tales which had been translated into German. Lang (1884-1912)
edited twelve Fairy Books between 1889 and 1910. His interest in fairy stories came out of his work as an
anthropologist (someone who studies human culture) and historian. He always made it clear to his readers that he
was the collector and editor of the stories in his Fairy Books, and not the original author: “Who really invented the
stories nobody knows; it is all so long ago, long before reading and writing were invented.” (Preface from The Violet
Fairy Book – 1901)
Andrew Lang
East of the Sun and West of the Moon was first published in 1845, in a collection by Norwegian folklorists, Peter
Christen Asbjornsen and Jorgen Moe. It was translated into English in 1849 in Anthony R Montalba’s Fairy Tales
From All Nations. In East of the Sun and West of the Moon the bridegroom is a white bear, not a pig, but many
2
elements of the Young Vic’s production (such as the character of the North Wind) are taken from this story.
Peter Christen Asbjornsen and Jorgen Moe
Although The Enchanted Pig and East of the Sun and West of the Moon come from places as different as Romania
and Norway, they share a common source – Cupid and Psyche. This story is included in a second century Roman
novel called The Golden Ass and features characters from ancient Greek and Roman mythology (so may be even
older than that!)
Cupid and Psyche tells the story of Psyche, a young woman married to a man she is never allowed to see. One
night, driven by curiosity and the fear that her husband is a monster, she waits until he is asleep and lights a lamp.
She discovers not a hideous beast, but Cupid, the beautiful god of love. A drop of burning lamp oil falls on the god
and he wakes up. Psyche is punished for her curiosity – Cupid leaves her and she is forced to endure years of
suffering and fulfill many tasks before she can be reunited with her husband.
Cupid and Psyche
3
The story of Cupid and Psyche was well known in seventeenth century France where it proved to be a strong
influence on a group of aristocratic women who wrote fairy stories. One of them, Marie-Catherine D'Aulnoy, wrote
several stories where a young woman is married off, often against her will, to an animal. In one, a princess is wed to
a ram; in another she marries a green serpent who turns out to be a prince. In the latter story, the heroine, like Flora
in The Enchanted Pig, is forced to wear iron shoes to prove her love for her husband.
After D’Aulnoy published her stories at the end of the seventeenth century, many stories about monstrous or animal
bridegrooms followed. The best-known of these is Beauty and the Beast, which was first published as a novella in
1740 by Madame Villeneuve and then retold by Madame Le Prince de Beaumont in 1756 in a shorter version. The
story has been made into films (most recently as an animated Disney film in 1991), and in 1996 the Young Vic
produced a Christmas show based on the story.
In fact, there are folk stories from all around the world where a young woman marries an animal or monster. These
animal bridegroom stories come from places as far apart as Norway, the Middle East, North America and Korea.
Some of the people who have told the stories (like the Native Americans) have been isolated from European
culture, so their animal bridegroom tales are unlikely to have developed from Cupid and Psyche. Why then are they
so similar? One reason might be that all human cultures share similar hopes and fears. This means that the stories
they tell are also similar.
A hairy husband isn’t the only thing the heroines of The Enchanted Pig and East of the Sun and West of the Moon
share with Psyche. They are all also extremely curious. There are many stories about women who follow their
inquisitive natures, often against the express orders of their gods, fathers or husbands. In the Bible, Eve tastes fruit
from the forbidden Tree of Knowledge and is thrown out of Paradise. In a very similar story, from Greek and Roman
mythology, Pandora opens a box given to her by the gods and lets evil loose into the world. The most famous fairy
story about a curious female is Bluebeard. In this story the heroine disobeys her husband and sneaks a peek into a
forbidden, secret chamber. There she discovers the gory corpses of Bluebeard’s many previous wives!
As we can see, the story told by the Young Vic’s opera The Enchanted Pig is over two thousand years old and
shares traits with stories from around the world. It can trace its heritage from classical mythology, through French
literature, Romanian and Norwegian folk culture, to the children’s books of the nineteenth century. In the following
pages we present a timeline tracing some of the more important events in the literary evolution of fairy tales, and a
selection of stories that bear a resemblance to The Enchanted Pig.
4
2. FAIRY TALES TIMELINE
The following timeline provides an overview of the development of fairy stories from classical mythology to the
familiar Disney versions of our own age. The timeline concentrates on the European tradition from which The
Enchanted Pig originates, and therefore does not take into detailed account the history of storytelling from Nordic,
Native American, Asian traditions etc.
A.D. 100-200 Greece
The myth, Cupid and Psyche is written by Apuleius and included in his Metamorphoses (also known as The Golden
Ass). Some scholars consider this to be the first literary fairy tale, very similar in nature to Beauty and the Beast.
A.D. 200-300 India
A Hindu collection of tales, the Panchatantra, is written. Some of these tales are thought to be forerunners of a few
European fairy tales.
850-860 China
The first known literary version of Cinderella is written in China.
Circa 800 to 1500 Persia
A collection of Arabian, Persian, and Indian folk tales are collated orally over many years and collated into a single
book by Arabian storyteller Abu abd-Allah Muhammed el-Gahshigar in the ninth century. A framing story featuring
Scheherazade, is added in the fourteenth or fifteenth century; this becomes known as One Thousand and One
Arabian Nights.
1634-6 Italy
Giambattista Basile writes Il Pentamerone, also known as The Tale of Tales. This collection of Neopolitan (from
Naples in present-day Italy) folk tales includes versions of Cinderella, Puss in Boots, Hansel and Gretel, Sleeping
Beauty, Cupid and Psyche and many other well-known fairy tales. The Tale of Tales may have been a source for
Charles Perrault’s Mother Goose Tales (see below) and was used extensively by the Grimm brothers. However, as
it is written in the complex Neapolitan dialect and is not translated into Italian until 1747, German in 1846, and
English in 1848, it isn’t widely read by the public until a much later date.
1690-1710 France
The French Salons are filled with literary fairy tales, written primarily by women. The most prolific and influential of
these is Marie-Catherine D'Aulnoy, who publishes four volumes of fairy tales 1696–1698. These are intended for an
adult audience and are translated into English in 1699.
1697 France
Charles Perrault's Histoires ou Contes du temps passe, also known as Mother Goose Tales, is published in Paris.
5
The tales enjoy instant success. Some of the tales included in this collection are Cinderella, The Sleeping Beauty,
Little Red Riding Hood, Bluebeard, and Puss in Boots. While not written exclusively for children, Perrault may have
been aware of the appeal his tales had for a younger audience.
1729 Great Britain
Robert Samber translates into English and publishes Perrault's Histories. They are a hit and become some of the
most popular fairy tales of all time.
1740 France
Madame Gabrielle de Villeneuve writes a three hundred and sixty two page version of Beauty and the Beast which
appears in La jeune ameriquaine, et les contes marins (The Young American Girl and the Sea Tales). This version
is not intended for children due to its complicated storylines, length, and subject matter.
1756 France
Madame Le Prince de Beaumont publishes her own, considerably shorter version, of Beauty and the Beast. It is
written for a young audience, with didactic messages and a simpler storyline. This is the first example of a literary
fairy tale being written specifically for children.
1812 & 1815 Germany
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm publish Kinder und Hausmarchen (Childhood and Household Tales). Popular tales from
the collection include The Frog King, Hansel and Gretel, Rumpelstiltskin and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
The Grimm brothers intended their collection of folk tales for an adult audience, but as it became clear that the
stories were popular with children, the Grimm brothers began to adapt their work for younger readers, making the
tales contain less cruelty and stronger moral messages.
1823 Great Britain
Edgar Taylor edits and publishes his brother Edward’s translation of the Grimms' tales in German Popular Stories.
The book is illustrated by George Cruikshank.
1835 Denmark
Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales Told for Children is published. Many of the tales are original stories, but a
few are based on traditional folklore, including The Wild Swans and The Princess and the Pea.
1845 Norway
East of the Sun and West of the Moon is first published in 1845, in a collection by Norwegian folklorists, Peter
Christen Asbjornsen and Jorgen Moe. It is translated into English in 1849 in Anthony R Montalba’s Fairy Tales From
All Nations.
1866 Russia
6
Aleksandr Afanasyev collects and publishes his first volume of Russian fairy tales.
1867 France
Gustave Dore's illustrations for Perrault's fairy tales are first published.
1889 England
Andrew Lang publishes the first of his twelve fairy books, The Blue Fairy Book. H J Ford draws most of the
illustrations in the books. The first English version of The Enchanted Pig appears in 1890 in The Red Fairy Book.
Lang’s source is Rumänische Märchen (Romanian Fairy Tales) which had been translated from Romanian into
German by Nite Kremnitz. The twelfth and final book, The Lilac Fairy Book, is published in 1910.
1890 Russia
Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky's The Sleeping Beauty premieres in St Petersburg, Russia on January 15, 1890. The
choreography is by Marius Petipa and the book is by Marius Petipa and Ivan Vsevolojsky. Some of Tchaikovsky's
score later appears in Walt Disney's adaptation of the story.
1937 United States
Walt Disney's first feature length animated film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, is released. The film is a
commercial success and leads to the creation of several more Disney fairy tale adaptations, including Cinderella in
1950, Sleeping Beauty in 1959, and The Little Mermaid in 1989.
1946 France
Jean Cocteau's film, La belle et la bétè (Beauty and the Beast) is released.
1971 United States
Anne Sexton, a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, publishes her poetry anthology, Transformations. The poems present
dark interpretations of well-known fairy tales and are not intended for children.
1975 United States
Bruno Bettelheim, originally from Vienna, publishes The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of
Fairy Tales, a psychological analysis of the relationship between children and fairy tales. With its Freudian bias, the
book becomes a staple in fairy tale studies, while remaining very controversial in its views and methodology. In
1977, the book wins the National Book Award and the National Book Critics’ Circle Award.
1979 Great Britain
Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber is published in Great Britain. Like Sexton's Transformations, this short story
anthology is aimed at an adult audience.
7
1990 Great Britain
The Young Vic stages The Snow Queen. It is the first of several innovative retellings of traditional fairy stories.
Grimm Tales (1994), Beauty and the Beast (1996), More Grimm Tales (1997), Arabian Nights (1998) and Sleeping
Beauty (2002 and 2004) follow.
1991 United States
Disney's Beauty and the Beast is released. It is the first feature-length animated film to be nominated for an
Academy Award.
1994 Great Britain
From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and Their Tellers is published. Written by Marina Warner, the book
focuses on five main fairy tales including The Beauty and the Beast and Cinderella, and considers the importance of
the female voice in relation to the tellers of fairy tales, and the role of female characters and their adventures.
2001 United States
In May, Shrek is released by Dreamworks. It is a computer animated feature film amalgamating numerous fairy tale
characters into a reinvention of the traditional fairytale adventure.
8
3. ORIGINAL AND SIMILAR STORIES
Jonathan Dove and Alasdair Middleton drew on two main sources for their version of The Enchanted Pig - a
Romanian folk tale of the same name and a Norwegian folk story called East of the Sun and West of the Moon.
Here is a transcription of The Enchanted Pig below.
The Enchanted Pig
Once upon a time there lived a King who had three daughters. Now it happened that he had to go out to battle, so
he called his daughters and said to them:
'My dear children, I am obliged to go to the wars. The enemy is approaching us with a large army. It is a great grief
to me to leave you all. During my absence take care of yourselves and be good girls; behave well and look after
everything in the house. You may walk in the garden, and you may go into all the rooms in the palace, except the
room at the back in the right-hand corner; into that you must not enter, for harm would befall you.'
'You may keep your mind easy, father,' they replied. 'We have never been disobedient to you. Go in peace, and
may heaven give you a glorious victory!'
When everything was ready for his departure, the King gave them the keys of all the rooms and reminded them
once more of what he had said. His daughters kissed his hands with tears in their eyes, and wished him prosperity,
and he gave the eldest the keys.
Now when the girls found themselves alone they felt so sad and dull that they did not know what to do. So, to pass
the time, they decided to work for part of the day, to read for part of the day, and to enjoy themselves in the garden
for part of the day. As long as they did this all went well with them. But this happy state of things did not last long.
Every day they grew more and more curious, and you will see what the end of that was.
'Sisters,' said the eldest Princess, 'all day long we sew, spin, and read. We have been several days quite alone, and
there is no corner of the garden that we have not explored. We have been in all the rooms of our father's palace,
and have admired the rich and beautiful furniture: why should not we go into the room that our father forbad us to
enter?'
‘Sister,' said the youngest, 'I cannot think how you can tempt us to break our father's command. When he told us
not to go into that room he must have known what he was saying, and have had a good reason for saying it.'
'Surely the sky won't fall about our heads if we do go in,' said the second Princess. 'Dragons and such like monsters
that would devour us will not be hidden in the room. And how will our father ever find out that we have gone in?'
9
While they were speaking thus, encouraging each other, they had reached the room; the eldest fitted the key into
the lock, and snap! the door stood open.
The three girls entered, and what do you think they saw?
The room was quite empty, and without any ornament, but in the middle stood a large table, with a gorgeous cloth,
and on it lay a big open book.
Now the Princesses were curious to know what was written in the book, especially the eldest, and this is what she
read:
'The eldest daughter of this King will marry a prince from the East.'
Then the second girl stepped forward, and turning over the page she read:
'The second daughter of this King will marry a prince from the West.'
The girls were delighted, and laughed and teased each other.
But the youngest Princess did not want to go near the table or to open the book. Her elder sisters however left her
no peace, and will she, nill she, they dragged her up to the table, and in fear and trembling she turned over the
page and read:
'The youngest daughter of this King will be married to a pig from the North.'
Now if a thunderbolt had fallen upon her from heaven it would not have frightened her more.
She almost died of misery, and if her sisters had not held her up, she would have sunk to the ground and cut her
head open.
When she came out of the fainting fit into which she had fallen in her terror, her sisters tried to comfort her, saying:
'How can you believe such nonsense? When did it ever happen that a king's daughter married a pig?'
'What a baby you are!' said the other sister; 'has not our father enough soldiers to protect you, even if the disgusting
creature did come to woo you?'
The youngest Princess would fain have let herself be convinced by her sisters' words, and have believed what they
said, but her heart was heavy. Her thoughts kept turning to the book, in which stood written that great happiness
waited her sisters, but that a fate was in store for her such as had never before been known in the world.
10
Besides, the thought weighed on her heart that she had been guilty of disobeying her father. She began to get quite
ill, and in a few days she was so changed that it was difficult to recognise her; formerly she had been rosy and
merry, now she was pale and nothing gave her any pleasure. She gave up playing with her sisters in the garden,
ceased to gather flowers to put in her hair, and never sang when they sat together at their spinning and sewing.
In the meantime the King won a great victory, and having completely defeated and driven off the enemy, he hurried
home to his daughters, to whom his thoughts had constantly turned. Everyone went out to meet him with cymbals
and fifes and drums, and there was great rejoicing over his victorious return. The King's first act on reaching home
was to thank Heaven for the victory he had gained over the enemies who had risen against him. He then entered
his palace, and the three Princesses stepped forward to meet him. His joy was great when he saw that they were all
well, for the youngest did her best not to appear sad.
In spite of this, however, it was not long before the King noticed that his third daughter was getting very thin and
sad-looking. And all of a sudden he felt as if a hot iron were entering his soul, for it flashed through his mind that
she had disobeyed his word. He felt sure he was right; but to be quite certain he called his daughters to him,
questioned them, and ordered them to speak the truth. They confessed everything, but took good care not to say
which had led the other two into temptation.
The King was so distressed when he heard it that he was almost overcome by grief. But he took heart and tried to
comfort his daughters, who looked frightened to death. He saw that what had happened had happened, and that a
thousand words would not alter matters by a hair's-breadth.
Well, these events had almost been forgotten when one fine day a prince from the East appeared at the Court and
asked the King for the hand of his eldest daughter. The King gladly gave his consent. A great wedding banquet was
prepared, and after three days of feasting the happy pair were accompanied to the frontier with much ceremony and
rejoicing.
After some time the same thing befell the second daughter, who was wooed and won by a prince from the West.
Now when the young Princess saw that everything fell out exactly as had been written in the book, she grew very
sad. She refused to eat, and would not put on her fine clothes nor go out walking, and declared that she would
rather die than become a laughing-stock to the world. But the King would not allow her to do anything so wrong, and
he comforted her in all possible ways.
So the time passed, till lo and behold! one fine day an enormous pig from the North walked into the palace, and
going straight up to the King said, 'Hail! oh King. May your life be as prosperous and bright as sunrise on a clear
day!'
'I am glad to see you well, friend,' answered the King, 'but what wind has brought you hither?'
11
'I come a-wooing,' replied the Pig.
Now the King was astonished to hear so fine a speech from a Pig, and at once it occurred to him that something
strange was the matter. He would gladly have turned the Pig's thoughts in another direction, as he did not wish to
give him the Princess for a wife; but when he heard that the Court and the whole street were full of all the pigs in the
world he saw that there was no escape, and that he must give his consent. The Pig was not satisfied with mere
promises, but insisted that the wedding should take place within a week, and would not go away till the King had
sworn a royal oath upon it.
The King then sent for his daughter, and advised her to submit to fate, as there was nothing else to be done. And
he added:
'My child, the words and whole behaviour of this Pig are quite unlike those of other pigs. I do not myself believe that
he always was a pig. Depend upon it some magic or witchcraft has been at work. Obey him, and do everything that
he wishes, and I feel sure that Heaven will shortly send you release.'
'If you wish me to do this, dear father, I will do it,' replied the girl.
In the meantime the wedding-day drew near. After the marriage, the Pig and his bride set out for his home in one of
the royal carriages. On the way they passed a great bog, and the Pig ordered the carriage to stop, and got out and
rolled about in the mire till he was covered with mud from head to foot; then he got back into the carriage and told
his wife to kiss him. What was the poor girl to do? She bethought herself of her father's words, and, pulling out her
pocket handkerchief, she gently wiped the Pig's snout and kissed it.
By the time they reached the Pig's dwelling, which stood in a thick wood, it was quite dark. They sat down quietly for
a little, as they were tired after their drive; then they had supper together, and lay down to rest. During the night the
Princess noticed that the Pig had changed into a man. She was not a little surprised, but remembering her father's
words, she took courage, determined to wait and see what would happen.
12
And now she noticed that every night the Pig became a man, and every morning he was changed into a Pig before
she awoke. This happened several nights running, and the Princess could not understand it at all. Clearly her
husband must be bewitched. In time she grew quite fond of him, he was so kind and gentle.
One fine day as she was sitting alone she saw an old witch go past. She felt quite excited, as it was so long since
she had seen a human being, and she called out to the old woman to come and talk to her. Among other things the
witch told her that she understood all magic arts, and that she could foretell the future, and knew the healing powers
of herbs and plants.
'I shall be grateful to you all my life, old dame,' said the Princess, 'if you will tell me what is the matter with my
husband. Why is he a Pig by day and a human being by night?'
'I was just going to tell you that one thing, my dear, to show you what a good fortune-teller I am. If you like, I will give
you a herb to break the spell.'
'If you will only give it to me,' said the Princess, 'I will give you anything you choose to ask for, for I cannot bear to
see him in this state.'
'Here, then, my dear child,' said the witch, 'take this thread, but do not let him know about it, for if he did it would
lose its healing power. At night, when he is asleep, you must get up very quietly, and fasten the thread round his left
foot as firmly as possible; and you will see in the morning he will not have changed back into a Pig, but will still be a
man. I do not want any reward. I shall be sufficiently repaid by knowing that you are happy. It almost breaks my
heart to think of all you have suffered, and I only wish I had known it sooner, as I should have come to your rescue
at once.'
When the old witch had gone away the Princess hid the thread very carefully, and at night she got up quietly, and
with a beating heart she bound the thread round her husband's foot. Just as she was pulling the knot tight there was
a crack, and the thread broke, for it was rotten.
Her husband awoke with a start, and said to her, 'Unhappy woman, what have you done? Three days more and this
unholy spell would have fallen from me, and now, who knows how long I may have to go about in this disgusting
shape? I must leave you at once, and we shall not meet again until you have worn out three pairs of iron shoes and
blunted a steel staff in your search for me.' So saying he disappeared.
Now, when the Princess was left alone she began to weep and moan in a way that was pitiful to hear; but when she
saw that her tears and groans did her no good, she got up, determined to go wherever fate should lead her.
On reaching a town, the first thing she did was to order three pairs of iron sandals and a steel staff, and having
made these preparations for her journey, she set out in search of her husband. On and on she wandered over nine
13
seas and across nine continents; through forests with trees whose stems were as thick as beer-barrels; stumbling
and knocking herself against the fallen branches, then picking herself up and going on; the boughs of the trees hit
her face, and the shrubs tore her hands, but on she went, and never looked back. At last, wearied with her long
journey and worn out and overcome with sorrow, but still with hope at her heart, she reached a house.
Now who do you think lived there? The Moon.
The Princess knocked at the door, and begged to be let in that she might rest a little. The mother of the Moon, when
she saw her sad plight, felt a great pity for her, and took her in and nursed and tended her. And while she was here
the Princess had a little baby.
One day the mother of the Moon asked her:
'How was it possible for you, a mortal, to get hither to the house of the Moon?'
Then the poor Princess told her all that happened to her, and added 'I shall always be thankful to Heaven for
leading me hither, and grateful to you that you took pity on me and on my baby, and did not leave us to die. Now I
beg one last favour of you; can your daughter, the Moon, tell me where my husband is?'
'She cannot tell you that, my child,' replied the goddess, 'but, if you will travel towards the East until you reach the
dwelling of the Sun, he may be able to tell you something.'
Then she gave the Princess a roast chicken to eat, and warned her to be very careful not to lose any of the bones,
because they might be of great use to her.
When the Princess had thanked her once more for her hospitality and for her good advice, and had thrown away
one pair of shoes that were worn out, and had put on a second pair, she tied up the chicken bones in a bundle, and
taking her baby in her arms and her staff in her hand, she set out once more on her wanderings.
14
On and on and on she went across bare sandy deserts, where the roads were so heavy that for every two steps
that she took forwards she fell back one; but she struggled on till she had passed these dreary plains; next she
crossed high rocky mountains, jumping from crag to crag and from peak to peak. Sometimes she would rest for a
little on a mountain, and then start afresh always farther and farther on. She had to cross swamps and to scale
mountain peaks covered with flints, so that her feet and knees and elbows were all torn and bleeding, and
sometimes she came to a precipice across which she could not jump, and she had to crawl round on hands and
knees, helping herself along with her staff.
At length, wearied to death, she reached the palace in which the Sun lived. She knocked and begged for admission.
The mother of the Sun opened the door, and was astonished at beholding a mortal from the distant earthly shores,
and wept with pity when she heard of all she had suffered. Then, having promised to ask her son about the
Princess's husband, she hid her in the cellar, so that the Sun might notice nothing on his return home, for he was
always in a bad temper when he came in at night.
The next day the Princess feared that things would not go well with her, for the Sun had noticed that some one from
the other world had been in the palace. But his mother had soothed him with soft words, assuring him that this was
not so. So the Princess took heart when she saw how kindly she was treated, and asked:
'But how in the world is it possible for the Sun to be angry? He is so beautiful and so good to mortals.'
'This is how it happens,' replied the Sun's mother. 'In the morning when he stands at the gates of paradise he is
happy, and smiles on the whole world, but during the day he gets cross, because he sees all the evil deeds of men,
and that is why his heat becomes so scorching; but in the evening he is both sad and angry, for he stands at the
gates of death; that is his usual course. From there he comes back here.'
15
She then told the Princess that she had asked about her husband, but that her son had replied that he knew nothing
about him, and that her only hope was to go and inquire of the Wind.
Before the Princess left the mother of the Sun gave her a roast chicken to eat, and advised her to take great care of
the bones, which she did, wrapping them up in a bundle. She then threw away her second pair of shoes, which
were quite worn out, and with her child on her arm and her staff in her hand, she set forth on her way to the Wind.
In these wanderings she met with even greater difficulties than before, for she came upon one mountain of flints
after another, out of which tongues of fire would flame up; she passed through woods which had never been
trodden by human foot, and had to cross fields of ice and avalanches of snow. The poor woman nearly died of
these hardships, but she kept a brave heart, and at length she reached an enormous cave in the side of a
mountain. This was where the Wind lived. There was a little door in the railing in front of the cave, and here the
Princess knocked and begged for admission. The mother of the Wind had pity on her and took her in, that she might
rest a little. Here too she was hidden away, so that the Wind might not notice her.
The next morning the mother of the Wind told her that her husband was living in a thick wood, so thick that no axe
had been able to cut a way through it; here he had built himself a sort of house by placing trunks of trees together
and fastening them with withes and here he lived alone, shunning human kind.
After the mother of the Wind had given the Princess a chicken to eat, and had warned her to take care of the bones,
she advised her to go by the Milky Way, which at night lies across the sky, and to wander on till she reached her
goal.
Having thanked the old woman with tears in her eyes for her hospitality, and for the good news she had given her,
the Princess set out on her journey and rested neither night nor day, so great was her longing to see her husband
again. On and on she walked until her last pair of shoes fell in pieces. So she threw them away and went on with
bare feet, not heeding the bogs nor the thorns that wounded her, nor the stones that bruised her. At last she
reached a beautiful green meadow on the edge of a wood. Her heart was cheered by the sight of the flowers and
the soft cool grass, and she sat down and rested for a little. But hearing the birds chirping to their mates among the
trees made her think with longing of her husband, and she wept bitterly, and taking her child in her arms, and her
bundle of chicken bones on her shoulder, she entered the wood.
For three days and three nights she struggled through it, but could find nothing. She was quite worn out with
weariness and hunger, and even her staff was no further help to her, for in her many wanderings it had become
quite blunted. She almost gave up in despair, but made one last great effort, and suddenly in a thicket she came
upon the sort of house that the mother of the Wind had described. It had no windows, and the door was up in the
roof. Round the house she went, in search of steps, but could find none. What was she to do? How was she to get
in? She thought and thought, and tried in vain to climb up to the door. Then suddenly she bethought her of the
16
chicken bones that she had dragged all that weary way, and she said to herself: 'They would not all have told me to
take such good care of these bones if they had not had some good reason for doing so. Perhaps now, in my hour of
need, they may be of use to me.'
So she took the bones out of her bundle, and having thought for a moment, she placed the two ends together. To
her surprise they stuck tight; then she added the other bones, till she had two long poles the height of the house;
these she placed against the wall, at a distance of a yard from one another. Across them she placed the other
bones, piece by piece, like the steps of a ladder. As soon as one step was finished she stood upon it and made the
next one, and then the next, till she was close to the door. But just as she got near the top she noticed that there
were no bones left for the last rung of the ladder. What was she to do? Without that last step the whole ladder was
useless. She must have lost one of the bones. Then suddenly an idea came to her. Taking a knife she chopped off
her little finger, and placing it on the last step, it stuck as the bones had done. The ladder was complete, and with
her child on her arm she entered the door of the house. Here she found everything in perfect order. Having taken
some food, she laid the child down to sleep in a trough that was on the floor, and sat down herself to rest.
When her husband, the Pig, came back to his house, he was startled by what he saw. At first he could not believe
his eyes, and stared at the ladder of bones, and at the little finger on the top of it. He felt that some fresh magic
must be at work, and in his terror he almost turned away from the house; but then a better idea came to him, and he
changed himself into a dove, so that no witchcraft could have power over him, and flew into the room without
touching the ladder. Here he found a woman rocking a child. At the sight of her, looking so changed by all that she
had suffered for his sake, his heart was moved by such love and longing and by so great a pity that he suddenly
became a man.
The Princess stood up when she saw him. and her heart beat with fear, for she did not know him. But when he had
told her who he was, in her great joy she forgot all her sufferings, and they seemed as nothing to her. He was a very
handsome man, as straight as a fir tree. They sat down together and she told him all her adventures, and he wept
with pity at the tale. And then he told her his own history.
'I am a King's son. Once when my father was fighting against some dragons, who were the scourge of our country, I
slew the youngest dragon. His mother, who was a witch, cast a spell over me and changed me into a Pig. It was
she who in the disguise of an old woman gave you the thread to bind round my foot. So that instead of the three
days that had to run before the spell was broken, I was forced to remain a Pig for three more years. Now that we
have suffered for each other, and have found each other again, let us forget the past.'
And in their joy they kissed one another.
17
Next morning they set out early to return to his father's kingdom. Great was the rejoicing of all the people when they
saw him and his wife; his father and his mother embraced them both, and there was feasting in the palace for three
days and three nights.
Then they set out to see her father. The old King nearly went out of his mind with joy at beholding his daughter
again. When she had told him all her adventures, he said to her:
'Did not I tell you that I was quite sure that that creature who wooed and won you as his wife had not been born a
Pig? You see, my child, how wise you were in doing what I told you.'
And as the King was old and had no heirs, he put them on the throne in his place. And they ruled as only kings rule
who have suffered many things. And if they are not dead they are still living and ruling happily.
Andrew Lang - The Red Fairy Book. (Original published 1890.)
East of the Moon West of the Sun
This is the other source for the Young Vic’s The Enchanted Pig. It can be found in Popular Tales from the Norse,
translated by Asbjornsen and Moe. Edinburgh: David Douglass, 1888.)
http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/eastsunwestmoon/index.html
18
Similar Tales
It is interesting to look at stories that may have influenced The Enchanted Pig or share similar themes and events.
Cupid and Psyche
Possibly the original source for The Enchanted Pig, this story contains many elements similar to the Young Vic
production, including a monster bridegroom, a helpful Wind and a series of tasks the heroine has to face before she
can be with her husband.
http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/beautybeast/stories/cupid3.html
Bulfinch, Thomas. ‘Cupid and Psyche.’ Bulfinch's Mythology: The Age of Fable. Boston: S. W. Tilton & Co. 1855.
This site also has the original Apuleius version and a version written specifically for children.
Beauty and the Beast
A later version of the story of Cupid and Psyche where, again, the heroine marries a strange beast.
http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/beautybeast/index.html
Lang, Andrew, ed. ‘Beauty and the Beast.’ The Blue Fairy Book. New York: Dover, 1965. Original published
1889.There is also a Basque and French version at this site.
Animal Bridegrooms
Some tales from the American Indians and other cultures about animal bridegrooms and more specifically, pig
bridegrooms.
http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/animalindian.html and http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/hog.html
Edited and/or translated by D. L. Ashliman © 1998-2000.
Circe
A story taken from Homer’s Odyssey about an enchantress who turned men into swine.
http://www.geocities.com/medea19777/circe.html
Curious Women
When Flora unlocks the secret room in The Enchanted Pig she is joining a long line of curious women from
mythology and folk literature. Here are some other stories about inquisitive heroines:
Adam and Eve
The story of Eve and the Tree of Knowledge can be found in the Bible – Genesis, Chapter 3.
Pandora’s Box
Guerber, H. A. The Myths of Greece and Rome G. Harrap & Co. 1907.
http://www.physics.hku.hk/~tboyce/ss/topics/prometheus.html
19
Bluebeard
Charles Perrault, Lang, Andrew, ed. ‘Bluebeard.’ The Blue Fairy Book. New York: Dover, 1965. Original published
1889.
http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/bluebeard/index.html
4. FROM FATE TO FAIRYTALES
Many people believe in the idea of fate: that the future has already been decided. Others believe that they create
their own destiny, or future, by making choices throughout their life.
The Book of Fate in The Enchanted Pig is thought to foretell the future. Similar books can be found in mythology,
such as the Tablets of Destiny from Mesopotamian, which were carved from stone and said to describe the destiny
of the universe and all things in it. There is a story that tells of a god, Imdugud, stealing the tablets from Enlil the
chief sky god. Supposedly, whoever possessed the tablets ruled the universe. The French emperor Napoleon often
consulted an ancient Eqyptian roll of papyrus known as Osirus's Will for Man which was thought to predict the
future. It never left Napoleon's side until his defeat at the battle of Leipzig in 1813, shortly after which he was
defeated by Wellington at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.
The word fate comes from a Latin (the language used by ancient Rome) word fatum which means ‘that which is
spoken’. It was used to describe three goddesses of ancient Greek and Roman mythology – the Fates. These three
goddesses are the sisters, Lachesis, Clotho and Atropos, who come to the birth of each human and decide on their
destiny. Lachesis sings of the past, Clotho of the present, and Atropos of the future. The Fates are often shown
spinning a thread which represents a human life: the thread is spun by Clotho, measured by Lachesis and finally cut
by Atropos. Because she decides on the length of your life (and, therefore, when you die) Atropos is the most
feared of the three sisters.
20
Three Fates
Some believe the Fates are controlled by Zeus, the King of the Gods. Others believe that even Zeus is ruled by the
Fates and that they are the most powerful of all the gods and goddesses.
Similar groups of three goddesses appear in other mythologies. The Norse, who lived in Norway, Sweden and
Iceland over a thousand years ago, called their three goddesses the Norns. They were Urth, the past; Verthandi,
the present; and Skuld, the future. Sometimes the Norns were called the Weird Sisters, from the Norse word wyrd,
meaning ‘fate’. (The three witches in Shakespeare’s play Macbeth were referred to as The Weird Sisters.) The Celts
had three war goddesses, known as the Morrigan, who decided on the fate of soldiers in battle. The idea of a triple
goddess may have come from a very old religion which worshipped the moon. Because the moon changes shape
throughout the month, the moon was imagined to be three women: the maiden or young woman (the new moon),
the mother (the full moon), and the crone or old woman (the old moon).
21
The Norns
The crone, or old woman, can be found throughout human mythology. From her beginnings as the face of the
moon, she appears again as the Fates, who were often shown as hideous old women, and again later in Greek and
Roman stories about Sibyls – old women who passed on prophecies from the gods. She also appears in many fairy
stories.
Our use of the word ‘fairy tales’, like the word ‘fate’ also comes from the Latin word fatum. The character of the Old
Woman, who might be a fairy godmother or wicked witch, shows many similarities to the Fates, giving warnings
about the future or changing the hero or heroine’s destiny for good or bad. For example, the bad fairy in Sleeping
Beauty appears at the princess’s christening and places a curse on her: that she will prick her finger on a spindle
and die. The Fates, who themselves were very familiar with the art of spinning, would often appear at the birth of a
child to foretell its destiny.
In The Enchanted Pig there are several characters who play the role of the Fates. The Book of Fate tells Flora she
will marry a pig, but there is also the familiar figure of the Old Woman, who does her best to influence Flora’s
destiny. At first the Old Woman seems to be like a fairy godmother, helping Flora break her pig bridegroom’s
enchantment. She gives Flora a magic red thread, telling her to tie Pig’s ankle to the bed while he sleeps, but when
the thread snaps the couple are forced to part, tricked by the Old Woman. This red thread is similar to the thread of
life spun by the Fates, and when it breaks, Flora loses the future the Book of Fate has chosen for her. To get it back
she must do the impossible: wear out three pairs of iron shoes. The Old Woman continues to stand in Flora’s way,
but finally she must let her fulfil her destiny – she cannot control Fate.
22
The figure of the Old Woman, as well as an important character in fairy stories, also appears as a teller of fairy
stories. In The Golden Ass, a story written in the third century, a young woman is kidnapped and held for ransom.
While she is held captive, an old woman tells her a story. This story is Cupid and Psyche, the tale that Beauty and
the Beast is based on, and the earliest written fairy story.
In 1697 a Frenchman called Charles Perrault, published a collection of eight fairy tales which included Sleeping
Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella and Bluebeard. Although the book was called Histories and Tales of
Long Ago, an illustration on the first page showed an old woman spinning and telling stories with the words Contes
de la Mere l'Oye (Tales of My Mother the Goose) behind her. The reason for this is that many stories were told
while spinning to while away the hours and keep children occupied while their mother worked.
When Perrault pictured her as the teller of his tales, Mother Goose was already a popular folk figure. As Perrault’s
stories were translated into other languages and became popular throughout the world, Mother Goose travelled with
them and became the familiar nursery character we know today. But while she might seem to modern audiences
like a nanny or favourite grandmother, it is likely that she, too, developed from the characters of the Fates, the Sibyl
and the Crone.
23
5. SUN, MOON AND WIND
Facts
In The Enchanted Pig the Sun, Moon and the North Wind are personified. For thousands of years, many cultures
have also personified these natural phenomenon in order to try and understand why they behave in the ways they
do – The Enchanted Pig is just one such example. Here are some actual scientific facts about them.
The Sun
The sun is the star around which our own solar system is based. A star is a huge, dense body that is held together
by its own gravity and generates energy through continuous nuclear fusion*. The sun creates enough heat and light
to support all life on earth.
The sun rises in the east and sets in the west. In winter, when the days are shorter, the sun rises and sets closer to
the horizon (to the south in the northern hemisphere, and to the north in the southern hemisphere). As winter turns
to spring and summer, the sun gets higher in the sky and the days get longer. The summer solstice is the longest
day of the year and the winter solstice is the shortest day. The equinox is the time (once in autumn and once in
spring) when the day is as long as the night.
The Moon
The moon orbits around the earth. Just as the earth’s gravity exerts a force on us, so does the moon. We cannot
feel it in the same way as we feels the earth’s but the moon’s gravity causes tides. A cold, dry rock whose surface is
studded with craters and strewn with dust, the moon has no atmosphere. The moon was probably created when a
small planet struck the earth just after the formation of the solar system, throwing large amounts of hot matter out
into the air which eventually stuck together to form the moon in orbit around the earth. The moon was first visited by
the Soviet spacecraft Luna 2 in 1959. The first manned landing was on July 20, 1969; the last was in December
1972.
Winds
Wind is caused by the uneven heating of the earth's surface and the flow of air from an area of high pressure to an
area of low. A wind is named by the direction the wind comes from, so the North wind comes from the north.
GODS AND MYTHS
The Sun
In many prehistoric and ancient cultures, the sun was thought to be a god. Many early religions were based around
the sun and the patterns of its behaviour throughout the year. Stone monuments in Nabta Playa in Egypt and at
Stonehenge in England accurately mark the summer solstice (the longest day of the year). The pyramid of El
Castillo at Chichén Itzá in
24
-------------------------------------* the process by which multiple nuclei join together to form a heavier nucleus. It is accompanied by the release or
absorption of energy. Nuclear fusion of light elements releases the energy that causes stars to shine and hydrogen
bombs to explode.
Mexico was designed over 1400 years ago by the Mayan people. On the spring and autumn equinox (when the day
is exactly the same length of time as the night), at the rising and setting of the sun, the corner of the structure casts
a shadow in the shape of a plumed serpent (one of the Mayan people’s gods) along the side of the temple.
El Castillo at Chichén Itzá
The Ancient Greeks and Romans believed that the sun was a god, Helios (later known as Apollo). Each morning at
dawn he rose from the ocean in the east and rode in his chariot, pulled by four horses - Pyrois, Eos, Aethon and
Phlegon - through the sky, to descend at night in the west. Helios’ son Phaeton, (‘the shining one’) when he finally
learnt who his father was, went east to meet him. He persuaded his father to allow him to drive the chariot of the
sun across the heavens for one day. The horses, feeling their reins held by a weaker hand, ran wildly out of their
course and came close to the earth, threatening to burn it. Zeus noticed the danger and destroyed Phaeton with a
thunderbolt.
25
Helios
Amaterasu
Amaterasu is a Japanese Sun goddess. One day she ran from her brother in embarrassment and hid in a cave,
obscuring the light that shone from her and plunging the world into darkness.
Liza is a deity of the Fon people who live in West Africa. Liza is the male sun, which is fierce and harsh, and Mawu
is the female moon. Mawu and Liza were also regarded as twins. Their unity represented the order of the universe.
Liza is said to dwell in the East, and Mawu in the West. Mawu and Liza were born from Nana Buluku, who created
the world.
Worship of the sun was central to civilizations such as the Aztecs. (The Aztecs were a powerful civilisation that
existed in central America before the Spanish invasion in the sixteenth century). Huitzilopochtli, whose name
means ‘Blue Hummingbird on the Left’, was the Aztec god of the sun and war. Huitzilopochtli was depicted as a
blue man fully armed and with his head decorated with hummingbird feathers. His mother, Coatlicue, was made
magically pregnant with Huitzilopochtli when a ball of feathers fell into the temple where she was sweeping and
came into contact with her breast. This mysterious pregnancy made her four hundred star children angry and they
decided to kill her. However, Huitzilopochtli sprang out of his mother as an adult fully armed and killed his other star
brothers and sisters. He cut off the leader’s head and threw it up into the sky to become the moon. Huitzilopochtli
was also the god who was supposed to guide Aztecs towards a promised land in the South. The Aztec people
fought to form an empire and to capture prisoners to sacrifice to Huitzilopochtli. The most common form of sacrifice
was to tear out the heart of a living adult or child and offer it to the sun.
26
Huitzilopochtli
Tsohanoai is the sun god of the Navajo Indians of North America. He crosses the sky, carrying the sun on his back.
At night, the sun rests by hanging on a peg in his house.
Chinese people believed there existed ten suns which appeared in turn in the sky during the Chinese ten-day
week. Each day the ten suns would travel with their mother, the goddess Xi He, to the Valley of the Light in the
East. There, Xi He would wash her children in the lake and put them in the branches of an enormous mulberry tree
called fu-sang. From the tree, only one sun would move off into the sky for a journey of one day, to reach mount
Yen-Tzu in the Far West. Tired of this routine, the ten suns decided to appear all together. The combined heat
made life on earth unbearable. To prevent the destruction of the earth, the emperor Yao asked Di Jun, the father of
the ten suns, to persuade his children to appear one at a time. They would not listen to him, so Di Jun sent the
archer, Yi, armed with a magic bow and ten arrows to frighten the disobedient suns. However, Yi only shot nine
suns, and the Sun that we see today remained in the sky. Di Jun was so angry about the death of nine of his
children that he condemned Yi to live as an ordinary mortal on the earth.
In The Enchanted Pig, the character of the sun is lively, happy and sporty. As we can see, in other stories he can be
brave, fierce, strong, but also shy.
The Moon
It is thought that the earliest depiction of the moon is on a 5,000 year old rock carving at Knowth in Ireland.
In Greek mythology Artemis (Diana in Roman mythology) is the goddess of the moon and the twin sister of Apollo
(the sun god). She was the virgin goddess of the hunt, chastity, and childbirth.
27
Artemis
Annigan
The Inuit, a group of people who live around the Arctic circle, tell a story about Malina, the sun goddess, and her
brother Anningan, the moon god. One night Anningan attacked his sister. During the fight, a seal oil lamp was
overturned and Malina's hands became black from the oil. As she pushed Anningan away her hands got his face
dirty. Malina ran as far away as she could into the sky, but Anningan started to chase her, and continues to do so
today. Because he chases her so much, each night he becomes skinnier and that is why the moon gets smaller
each evening during the month. At the end of a month, Anningan disappears for three days to eat. Then he starts
chasing her all over again.
In Maori (the indigenous people of New Zealand) mythology, Rona was the daughter of the sea god, Tangaroa. She
controlled the tide. One night she was carrying a bucket of stream water back home to her children when the path
became dark. The moon slipped behind the clouds making it impossible to see anything. As Rona was walking, she
hit her foot against a root that was sticking out of the ground and she was so upset she made some unkind remarks
about the moon. The moon heard her remarks and put a curse on the Maori people and grabbed Rona and her
water bucket. Many people today see a woman with a bucket in the moon and it is said that when Rona upsets her
bucket, it rains. This Maori story symbolizes the influence of the moon on the rain and on the waters of the Earth,
and especially on the tides.
Often depicted as a wise old man with a long beard, the moon god Sin was one of the most important Babylonian
gods. Sin was thought to confer fertility and prosperity on cowherds by governing the rise of waters and the growth
of reeds, particularly in the marshes along the Euphrates River, where his worship originated. He was also
connected with wisdom and with the calendar.
In our production of The Enchanted Pig, we have depicted the character of the Moon as a lighthouse keeper who
spends his time cleaning the lenses. He is introspective, sad and mournful. However, other cultures have
associated the moon with being mischievous and inconstant, as it waxes and wanes. Also, the words lunacy, lunatic
28
and loony are derived from the Latin word luna meaning moon, because of the folk belief in the moon as a cause of
madness.
Designs for the Moon’s costume
29
The Wind
Man has given the winds many different names, often to characterise the effect, good or bad, that wind could have
on life. In The Enchanted Pig, the North Wind is portrayed as a forthright person who speaks his mind at all times
and is seemingly rude, although we soon realise that he is actually a very kind, loving husband.
In Europe, the North Wind has always been bitter and cold as it blows from the Arctic, or North Pole. The Greeks
gave names to the fours winds, but it is Boreas, the North Wind who figures most prominently. Boreas had two
sons, two daughters, and twelve mares which raced over the ground without destroying the grain. When the Persian
navy of Xerxes threatened the city of Athens, the Athenians begged his assistance. The Great Wind of the Wintery
North blew his anger at the Persians and four hundred Persian ships immediately sank.
Boreas
The other Greek wind gods are Zephyrus (West Wind), Eurus (East Wind), and Notus (South Wind). The south wind
comes from the south and is warm, but it also brings storms in late summer and autumn.
The Hopi, a Native American tribe, tell of a wind god, Yaponcha who lived at the foot of Sunset Crater in a great
crack in the black rock, through which he breathes, and does so to this day. One day the Hopi sealed up the crack
so the wind wouldn’t blow all their seeds away. This made the climate so hot they decided to open up a little hole for
Yaponcha, just enough for him to breathe through, but not large enough for him to come out altogether. Ever since
that time, the winds have been just right - enough to keep the people cool without blowing everything away.
Fujin is the Japanese god of the wind and one of the eldest Shinto gods. He was present at the creation of the
world, and when he first let the winds out of his bag, they cleared the morning mists and filled the space between
heaven and earth so the sun could shine. He is portrayed as a terrifying dark demon wearing a leopard skin and
carrying a large bag of winds on his shoulders. A legend in Chinese Buddhism states that Fujin and Raijin, the god
of thunder, were both originally evil demons who opposed Buddha. They were captured in battle by Buddha's army
of heaven, and have worked as gods since then.
30
Fujin
Ehecatl
In Aztec mythology, Ehecatl is the god of the winds. He begins the movement of the sun, and sweeps the high
roads of the rain god with his breath.
Vayu is the Indian Hindu wind god and father of Hanuman, the mischievous monkey god. As a child, Hanuman
thought the sun was a sweet fruit and swallowed it, plunging the universe into darkness. Indra, the thunder god,
struck Hanuman down and Vayu threatened to withdraw all the air from the world. However, Yama, the God of
death granted Hanuman immortality, whereupon he freed the sun and the universe was lit.
31
6. PIGS!
Swine is a term that describes all cloven-hoofed, snouted animals. Pig refers to domesticated animals that we see
in the farmyard. A female pig is a sow and a male pig is a boar. Boar is also the English word for the tusked and
hairier swine that live in the wild. Young pigs are called either piglets, shoats or arrow. Hog is a synonym for pig.
Pigs are unable to sweat; instead, they wallow in mud to cool down. This has given them a reputation for being
messy, when in fact, pigs are some of the cleanest animals around, preferring not to go to the toilet anywhere near
their living or eating areas.
Pigs are smarter than any other domestic animal, and excellent problem solvers. They are considered by animal
experts to be more trainable than dogs or cats.
Pigs exist, in one form or another, in every part of the world - red river hogs in West Africa, bearded pigs in Borneo,
peccaries in Bolivia, and tusked Indonesian babirusa all enjoy similar food and a good roll in the dirt.
It is believed that humans started to keep swine around 7500 BCE, about the same time as sheep, but they did not
spread rapidly, possibly because pigs need to eat more than grass, which means that they are more expensive to
keep.
Both Muslim and Jewish cultures forbid the eating of pork. There are several reasons suggested for this: firstly, the
sow may have been sacred; secondly, the pig is genetically quite close to humans, so that there may have been an
early anti-cannibalistic instinct against the eating of pork; and lastly, is the health risk associated with eating
undercooked pork.
Pig Tales
The pig eats almost everything in its path, making it a menace to crops and to people. Pigs eat meat, sometimes
their own young, and there are even stories of domestic pigs killing and eating humans. There are many myths
about pigs eating anything and everything. According to Sir James Frazer in The Golden Bough (1890), at a
Halloween bonfire when the fire went out, everyone ran away shouting, "The cropped sow seize the hindermost".
Masks of a Polynesian demon are armed with boar's tusks, as well as many Eastern depictions of demons. Ancient
images of Medusa (a snake-haired monster) often show her with boar's tusks too.
Many stories about boars and pigs are connected with death. The medieval Welsh stories, the Mabinogion, mention
the introduction of pigs to the British Isles, along with their link to Annwyn, the Celtic land of the dead, and Arawn its
king.
In pigs’ trotters there are very small holes, which may be seen when the hair has been carefully removed. It may be
as a result of these connections with death, that a tradition has arisen about the legion of devils entering the world
32
by these holes.
Among the Egyptians, touching a pig was considered unclean, and swineherds were a class of untouchables,
forbidden from entering a temple. However, the Egyptian goddess of the night, Mother of Stars, was sometimes
depicted as a sow suckling her pigs.
In the Chinese folk story, Monkey!, Pigsy, originally a divine being, was placed on earth in a half-human, half-pig
form as punishment for a drunken indiscretion with the moon goddess' daughter. Before his conversion to
Buddhism, Pigsy was also a demon, a cannibal, and a glutton. His weapon, a manure fork, indicates his affinity with
excrement.
The Polynesian pig, Kamapua, or Hog Child, wooed Pele the fire or volcano goddess. He is a fertility god who also
has connections with the underworld.
Pigs were also often sacrificed to various gods. Once a year, in ancient Egypt, pigs were sacrificed to Osiris and to
the moon, and their flesh eaten. Pigs were also sacrificed to Demeter, the Greek harvest goddess, as they were
thought to be her favourite animal.
Pigs are also considered to be very intelligent and many stories have been written which involve a clever pig. The
Three Little Pigs is a famous fairy tale in which the third pig outwits the wolf inside his brick house. Sheep-Pig by
Dick King-Smith, which was made into a very successful film called Babe, tells the story of a little pig called Babe
who learns how to be a sheep-dog and saves the sheep from thieves. Most famously, George Orwell in Animal
Farm portrays the pigs in the farmyard as the animals who lead the revolution against man.
33
7. OPERA AND MUSICAL THEATRE
What is the Difference Between a Musical and an Opera?
Both are types of theatre that rely on music to carry much of the emotional content of the story, but what are the
differences between an opera and a musical?
The easiest way to define them is to say that an opera is sung all the way through, while a musical has more
spoken dialogue and dance. However there are some operas, and most operettas, which have spoken dialogue,
while several musicals, such as Les Misérables, are sung all the way through.
Another difference is that musicals tend to use popular musical forms, whereas opera tends to be associated with
“classical” music forms. (Although the word “classical” is itself a difficult word to define.) Again, however, there are
exceptions. When Gershwin wrote Porgy and Bess in 1935, he called it an “American folk opera”. It was sung
through and scored for a full orchestra, but much of the music was drawn from contemporary jazz and folk music.
Leonard Bernstein once said: "I really think that when something plays Broadway it's a musical, and when it plays in
an opera house it's opera. That's it. It's the terrain, the countryside, the expectations of the audience that make it
one thing or another."
Perhaps this is the most useful definition of all.
When people go to the opera, they often go to see operas that were written centuries earlier, often in a foreign
language. Musicals are drawn from a more recent, popular tradition (it is unusual for musicals written before the
1920s to be staged today). However, the line between these two artforms is being constantly challenged. Opera
composers and directors fight against traditional expectations of what an opera should sound and look like, or what
it should be about (for example, the National Theatre’s Jerry Springer: The Opera in 2003), while musicals continue
to be written that tackle serious subjects and break new artistic ground.
The Enchanted Pig uses singers from both musical and opera backgrounds, is sung all the way through, and uses a
small band: is it an opera or a musical?
A History of Opera and Musical Theatre
The following is a brief introduction to the history of opera and musical theatre, illustrated with examples of
productions currently being performed in England. If students would like to learn more about the composers and
works mentioned, Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org) has a comprehensive entry on many.
The very beginning…
Western theatre began in Greece over two thousand years ago as songs sung in religious festivals. As the
centuries progressed, these songs began to present stories, and eventually the stories started to be spoken rather
than sung and music took a supporting role to the main drama.
34
In Florence in 1600, the Greek practice of singing the text to music was revisited when a composer called Peri wrote
several pieces of drama which were set to music. One of these pieces – Euridice – has survived and is the earliest
example of what we know as opera.
Opera from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries
A few years later a composer called Monteverdi wrote an opera called Orfeo, which tells the story of the ancient
Greek myth of Orpheus (see below). Monteverdi used recitative (sung dialogue with little melody to drive the plot)
and arias (which explored the emotions of the characters and was much more melodic).
Orfeo
Touring this winter with the English Touring Opera
Composed by Monteverdi, this opera was first performed in 1607. Based on the ancient Greek myth of Orpheus,
who attempts to rescue his dead lover Eurydice from Hades, the underworld, Orfeo is the earliest opera to be
regularly performed.
This period of opera, which also featured composers such as Handel and Gluck, is known as the Baroque period.
Baroque operas often used stories from classical mythology and featured a small orchestra, comprising mostly
string instruments and some early wind and brass instruments. During the Baroque period, most libretti (the words
of an opera) were in Italian, even when a German composer like Handel was writing for English audiences.
During the eighteenth century, a composer called Mozart created a form of comic opera called opera buffa. His
operas focused on everyday characters and situations, rather than the heroes and gods of Baroque opera. Some of
these operas remain popular today, such as The Marriage of Figaro (see below), Don Giovanni, Così fan tutte and
The Magic Flute. These operas also had more ensemble singing (where two or more characters sing together)
rather than the solo arias of earlier opera. Italian continued to be the most common language for operas to be sung
in.
Marriage of Figaro
Playing this winter at English National Opera
Composed in 1786 by Mozart this is a comic opera. It tells the story of Figaro, a servant to the Count and Countess
Almaviva. It is the day of his marriage to Susanna, but Figaro has to overcome many comic obstacles to marry the
woman he loves. The Marriage of Figaro is one of the world’s most famous and best-loved operas. The production,
like all operas performed at ENO, is sung in English, although the libretto was originally written in Italian.
During the nineteenth century, several Italian composers including Rossini, Donizetti and Bellini developed bel
canto opera, which means ‘beautiful singing’. It demanded excellent breath control and vocal agility from its singers.
The emphasis moved from the character and story to showcasing the ability of the singers. The most famous
examples of operas from this period are Rossini’s The Barber of Seville and Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore.
35
German opera in the nineteenth century used a much larger orchestra. Operas were through-sung and were no
longer separate arias divided by recitative. Wagner, the most well-known opera composer of this period, also
introduced the use of leitmotif – musical melodies which were linked to particular characters, themes or emotions.
Operas became much longer in duration and required singers with heavier voices to be heard above the orchestra.
Der Ring des Niebulung
The Royal Opera House are putting on Wagner’s Ring Cycle next October which has already sold out.
This is a series of four epic music dramas based loosely on figures and elements of Germanic paganism, particularly
from the Icelanders’ Sagas and the Nibelungenlied. It is often referred to as ‘The Ring Cycle’, ‘Wagner's Ring’, or
simply ‘The Ring’. Both the libretto and the music were written by Wagner over the course of twenty-six years, from
1848 to 1874.
Towards the end of the nineteenth century, opera became influenced by the Realism movements in literature, art
and theatre. Verismo operas (from the Italian word meaning realism) began to use plots from real life, especially
that of the working classes and the harsh poverty they lived in. Songs also became more conversational or
naturalistic. Bizet’s Carmen (see below) was the first verismo opera, and popular composers Verdi and Puccini
followed in a similar style.
Carmen
Playing this winter at the Royal Opera House
Written by Georges Bizet and first performed in 1875, Carmen tells the story of a beautiful gypsy who works in a
tobacco factory in Spain and the soldiers stationed at a local barracks. Several men fall in love with Carmen and
their rivalry for her love ends in tragedy. Aiming for greater realism and more detailed characterisation, Carmen was
considered a failure at its first performance, denounced by critics as ‘immoral’ and ‘superficial’. Today, it is one of
the world's most popular operas.
Development of the Modern Musical
One of the first pieces of British musical theatre was a deliberate reaction against opera. John Gay's The Beggar's
Opera, written in 1728, makes fun of the Italian-language, through-sung operas which were popular in London at
the time. For his anti-opera, Gay borrowed popular songs of the day and rewrote the lyrics, creating a story about a
group of beggars and thieves in the poor areas of London. Ballad operas, as they came to be known, based on this
formula, would be popular throughout the eighteenth century.
During the nineteenth century, European operettas, or ‘light operas’ were popular on the London stage. With
spoken dialogue and less serious plots, operettas were very similar to early musical theatre. In England, Gilbert and
Sullivan created an English equivalent to French operetta, called comic opera. Their creations included HMS
Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance, and The Mikado, which became hits in the 1870s and 80s.
The musicals of the 1920s tended to ignore plot in favour of star performers, big dance routines, and popular songs.
At this time, popular music was dominated by hits from the shows. Many of the “standards” we listen to today by
36
George Gershwin (eg “Someone to Watch over Me”) and Cole Porter (eg ‘I've Got You Under My Skin’) come from
musicals of this period.
In 1927, a musical called Show Boat opened on Broadway in New York. Rather than simply linking a few musical
numbers together with a thin plot, this musical told a complex and dramatic story through both the music and
dialogue. Other similar serious musicals would follow. Gershwin's Porgy and Bess (1935) (see below) was even
called a ‘folk opera’, styling itself as an opera using popular music forms, rather than a musical with serious
storylines.
Porgy and Bess
Currently on in London’s West End
George Gershwin wrote this folk opera in 1935. Painting a picture of African American life in South Carolina in the
early 1930’s, Porgy and Bess tells the story of Porgy, a crippled black man living in the slums of Charleston, and his
attempts to rescue Bess from the clutches of Crown, her pimp, and Sportin' Life, a drug dealer. Trevor Nunn
previously directed Porgy and Bess in 1986 at Covent Garden as an opera (it was originally written to be throughsung with a full orchestra). This production at the Savoy Theatre in the West End has been produced as a musical,
with spoken dialogue added in and the music rescored for a smaller band. There has been much discussion in the
press about whether the piece is an opera or a musical.
The Golden Age
The 1940s, 1950s and 1960s saw the Golden Age of American musical theatre. The first major hit of this period was
Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma! which, like Show Boat, had a strong plot and song and dance numbers that
furthered the action of the story. It was the first blockbuster Broadway show, running a total of two thousand, two
hundred and twelve performances, and continues to be produced today. Other hits from this period include Rodgers
and Hammerstein's The Sound of Music (1959), Loesser and Burrows' Guys and Dolls (1950) (see below) and
Lerner and Loewe’s My Fair Lady (1956). Popular Hollywood movies were also made of these musicals.
Guys and Dolls
Currently on in London’s West End
Loesser and Burrows' Guys and Dolls was first performed in 1950 and enjoyed a long initial run (one thousand two
hundred performances). It has a cohesive (if somewhat slim) plot, songs that further the action, and lots of big,
brash song and dance numbers. The plot is based around a group of petty criminals in New York and the women
they love: a nightclub singer and a sister in the Salvation Army.
During the 1960s and 1970s, musicals tried to break away from tradition by experimenting with new musical and
theatrical styles. Hair (1967) featured not only rock music, but also nudity and controversial opinions about the
Vietnam War. A Chorus Line (1976) was based on verbatim theatre techniques, using tape-recorded workshop
37
sessions. John Kander and Fred Ebb’s Cabaret (1966) and Chicago (1975) (see below) paid homage to earlier
forms of musical theatre such as European cabaret and American vaudeville.
Cabaret and Chicago
Currently on in London’s West End
Both written by John Kander and Fred Ebb, Cabaret (1966) and Chicago (1975) have both been made into
successful films. Cabaret is set in a cabaret venue in pre-World War II Nazi German, and the love story is told
between cabaret acts. Chicago is set in the era of prohibition Chicago and tells the story of a group of criminal
women who achieve celebrity in the press. The song and dance numbers are staged as vaudeville acts.
1980s and 1990s
The 1980s and 1990s saw the arrival of European ‘mega-musicals’ or ‘pop operas’, which typically featured a popinfluenced score and had large casts and impressive theatrical effects. Many were based on novels or other works
of literature. Les Misérables (see below) is the best known of these, along with Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Evita and
The Phantom of the Opera.
Les Misérables
Currently on in London’s West End
Written by the French team, Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil, Les Misérables has been running for over
twenty five years in the West End. Based on the novel by nineteenth century French writer Victor Hugo, it tells the
story of ex-convict Jean Valjean and the policeman who pursues him. The musical is set against the backdrop of
nineteenth century France, and shows the struggles of the poor and the attempts of a group of students to form a
revolution. Like an opera, Les Misérables is sung all the way through with no spoken dialogue.
After decades of movies and pop songs coming out of musical theatre hits, the 80s and 90s saw the reverse begin
to happen. Disney began to adapt its popular animated movie musicals – such as Beauty and the Beast and The
Lion King into stage shows. Another trend has been to create a musical from songs that have already been hits,
and writing a plot to fit them. These ‘jukebox musicals’, as they have come to be known, include Mamma Mia!
(1999, featuring songs by ABBA) (see below), We Will Rock You (2002, featuring songs by Queen) and Daddy Cool
(2006, featuring songs by BoneyM).
Mamma Mia
Currently on in London’s West End
Featuring songs by ABBA, Mamma Mia is set on a Greek island. On the eve of her wedding a woman is trying to
discover the identity of her father. Three men from her mother's past are brought back to the island they last visited
twenty years ago.
38
Opera and Musical Theatre Today
Modern opera continued to develop throughout the twentieth and into the twenty-first century, telling more realistic
stories, experimenting with musical forms and using smaller orchestras and performance spaces.
Today, both opera and musical theatre continue to produce new work, refusing to limit themselves in subject matter
or style. The National Theatre is currently showing Caroline, Or Change (see below), a musical written by Tony
Kushner, a Tony-award-winning American playwright whose previous work included Angels in America.
Contemporary opera tackles subjects as diverse as trash TV (Jerry Springer the Opera) or the events on the world
stage (Nixon in China).
Caroline, Or Change
Currently playing at the National Theatre
Written by Tony Kushner Caroline, Or Change opened on Broadway in 2004. Set in Louisiana in 1963, this musical
tackles issues of race and human rights. When asked in a recent interview by The Telegraph why the National
Theatre was staging a musical, Artistic Director Nicholas Hytner said "It's not really a Broadway musical. I do think it
resists classification. We're not in the business of producing Broadway musicals for people, but we're doing this
because it seems to me to be an absolutely vibrant addition to our repertoire of contemporary theatre. I see it as
part of our repertoire, rather than part of some season of musicals."
Singers and the Chorus
Singers, and the roles they play, are categorised by how low or how high they can sing.
Voices from the highest to the lowest are:
Female
soprano
HIGH
mezzo-soprano
contralto
Male
countertenor
tenor
baritone
LOW
bass-baritone
bass
Professional singers need to train hard to become performers and never stop having voice lessons. They learn how
to breathe and warm up their voices by doing scales and exercises before they practise their music. Opera singers
39
do not use microphones, unlike singers in some musicals. Most singers study vocal techniques at a music college
and work with a pianist or coach to prepare their music. They study dance and acting, too, as these performance
skills are important. Opera singers also need to study languages as operas are often sung in Italian, French,
German and Russian. It can take years to become a singer because voices develop with age.
As well as the solo roles in an opera or musical, many singers are part of the chorus. The chorus are an important
part of music-based theatre. Theatre began as songs sung in praise of the god Dionysus at a festival each year.
The songs were sung by the chorus, which was originally made up of twelve singing and dancing members. The
whole chorus tried to stay in rhythm with each other so they would be heard as one voice rather than separate
entities.
Later, as theatre developed and solo actors began to play the main characters in the story, the chorus came to play
the crowd or members of the community. They offered background and summary information to help the audience
follow the performance, commented on main themes, and showed how an audience might react to the drama as it
was presented.
Choruses have remained an important part of both opera and musical theatre. The chorus in The Enchanted Pig
help us follow the play and think about some of the ideas explored by the story - they play scientists who are
investigating the nature of love; wedding guests at the princesses’ marriages; and servants at Pig’s palace.
40
8. SYNOPSIS
Three princesses, Mab, Dot and Flora, sit sewing. Their father, King Hildebrand comes to say goodbye – he is off
to war.
Before he leaves he forbids them to enter the locked dark room at the end of the passage. He entrusts Flora with
the key.
The two elder sisters decide to find out what is behind the door and steal the key from Flora.
As the princesses run through the palace they imagine what they might find. When they enter the dark room they
discover a large book – the Book of Fate in which everyone’s destiny is written.
Flora begs her sisters to leave but they read the book and find that the eldest sister will marry the King of the West,
the middle sister will marry the King from the East and Flora must wed a Pig from the North!
King Hildebrand returns with two young men who have helped him win the war.
The King introduces the King of the West who he has promised may marry his eldest daughter in thanks for his
help. Meanwhile, Dot falls in love with his noble friend, and King Hildebrand consents to their marriage despite the
fact that he is not a King. The nobleman reveals himself to be the King of the East.
The Book of Fate is coming true.
A terrible smell fills the palace and grunting and squealing can be heard. There is a knocking at the door and the
voice of the Pig from the North calls out claiming his bride.
At first the King reassures Flora, but when he hears that she has read the Book of Fate he knows she must marry
Pig.
Flora tries to escape from the Pig but her family encourage her to accept her husband despite his flaws.
After the weddings the three sisters go their separate ways and Flora heads towards Pig’s palace. Once there, Pig
wallows in the mud and makes Flora join him. He kisses her.
41
Sitting in her bedroom covered in mud she wonders why she isn’t upset kissing a pig. Pig is surprised his new wife
wants to talk to him rather than weep or sleep. He begins to cry. As she dries his tears she notices his deep, clear
eyes. He tries to leave but she commands him, as her husband, to stay. This breaks the spell he is under and he
is transformed into a handsome prince.
However as dawn breaks he once more becomes a pig. In order to break the spell forever Flora must love, trust
and be patient.
However, Flora thinks there must be a quicker way to break the spell.
An Old Woman finds her crying and offers to help. She is sorry for her as her daughter has also had her heart
broken by love. The Old Woman gives Flora a piece of magic red thread and tells her to tie Pig’s ankle to the bed in
the night. When he wakes up, he will be restored to human form.
She follows the instructions but the spell is not broken. The Old Woman is the witch who enchanted the Prince in
the first place, and Flora’s love has not been strong enough to save him.
The Old Woman claims the Pig as a husband for her daughter and says Flora will never see him again – not even if
she wears out three pairs of iron shoes looking for him. Pig begs Flora to search the world for him and she accepts
the challenge of wearing out three sets of iron shoes.
INTERVAL
Flora starts her travels. She walks and walks and she reaches the house of Mr and Mrs North Wind at the World’s
End. As Flora rubs her feet on their doormat, her first pair of shoes breaks. The North Wind offers to help her in
her search and his wife gives her a broach. The North Wind takes her up in the sky to find the moon. As she flies
Flora sees her husband, as though in a dream. He is with the Old Woman and Adelaide her daughter.
When Flora reaches the Moon, she asks him for help and he admires her constancy and determination. He has not
seen her husband, but thinks that the Sun might know. He takes her to Sun’s palace and before he leaves gives her
a moon jewel. Once again as she flies, Flora sees her husband, this time being readied for a wedding to Adelaide.
At the Sun’s Palace Flora’s second pair of iron shoes breaks. The Sun has seen her husband at the top of the Milky
Way, and persuaded by Day, he agrees to take Flora there. As Flora climbs the Milky Way, the stars scratch away
at her iron shoes, and her final pair fall away.
42
Preparations are underway at the palace of the Old Woman, but Adelaide is not happy. She wants everything to
be perfect for her wedding in three days time. Adelaide wants Flora’s broach for her wedding dress and Flora gives
it to her in exchange for watching over her fiancé.
Flora hopes to break the prince’s spell with a kiss but finds that he cannot be woken, even with the help of the North
Wind.
The next morning Flora gives Adelaide the moon jewel for her tiara, and in return is entrusted to look over him for
another night.
Adelaide questions her mother’s decision to kidnap the prince but she is told, mother knows best.
The second night Flora tries to wake the prince but once again fails even with the moon’s help.
The next morning Flora gives Adelaide her final jewel. Flora discovers that the prince is being drugged each night,
and so when Adelaide tries to make him drink the potion, she throws the cup to the ground. The prince recognises
Flora and is set free.
The Old Woman tries to cast another spell but her magic cannot match their love.
43
9. CAST AND CREATIVE TEAM
King Hildebrand / North Wind
John Rawnsley
Mab / Adelaide
Kate Chapman
Dot / Day
Akiya Henry
Flora
Caryl Hughes or
Anna Dennis
Pig
Rodney Clarke or
Byron Watson
Book of Fate / Old Woman / Mrs North Wind
Nuala Willis
King from the East / Moon
Joshua Dallas
King from the West / Sun
Delroy Atkinson
Composer
Jonathan Dove
Libretto
Alasdair Middleton
Direction
John Fulljames
Set & Costumes
Dick Bird
Lighting
Paul Anderson
Choreographer
Philippe Giraudeau
Musical Supervisor
Stuart Stratford
Music Director
Ian Watson/Eddie Hessian
Costume Supervisor
Caroline Hughes
Assistant Director
Pia Furtado
44
10. INTERVIEW WITH DIRECTOR JOHN FULLJAMES
What was the starting point for the production?
Alasdair Middleton and Jonathan Dove wrote the piece and I was asked to direct it. The process started, for me,
when Dick Bird (the designer) and I started to think about where to place the piece visually. So we looked at the
world of fairytales and lots of pictures of princesses, Snow White etc. Then we tried to work out how to mix that
world with a world where a father would call his daughter “princess” and then give her a tenner to go down to HMV.
The other big idea we wanted to think about was, who was the chorus? They have no particular characterisation in
the script, but they are enquirers, investigators and this coheres with the piece’s concern with curiosity, with Flora’s
curiosity. We became interested in the history of scientific enquiry through experimentation and developed the idea
of the chorus as love scientists. We explored the period of public experimentation in eighteenth century and came
across the invention of the orrery. The orrery is a model of the universe that was used in public demonstrations.
This was an image that seemed to capture both the idea of enquiry and the theatricality of the piece.
How would you describe your role as a director in an opera company?
Everybody has a specific job to do: to make sure the music’s right; that it looks good; that everybody moves
according to their character. I have no specific job beyond telling the story – and making sure that there is a
coherence between all the other elements.
What would you say is the central story or idea of The Enchanted Pig?
Curiosity.
45
11. INTERVIEW WITH WRITER ALASDAIR MIDDLETON
What was your starting point?
Quite a few things that Jonathan Dove and I have written together have been based on folk stories, so we read
loads of folk tales and tried to find a few stories that were really good, that everyone thought would make a good
story.
What in particular drew you to this story?
Mud. Jonathan and I were particularly taken with that!
We decided to take the second half of the script from another story. A Norwegian folk tale called East of the Sun
and West of the Moon where the hero was originally a bear not a pig. I like that you think you know where the story
is heading and then it changes direction. “No, I’m not going to be that story”.
What comes first the music or the words?
The words. We talk about it in general first of all, but nothing specific. Then I write the whole thing in a first draft.
Any rewrites happen when Jonathan asks me to write a few more lines here or there. With this piece, he asked
there to be as little recitative* as possible, to make everything a number. Every single moment in the story became a
cue for a song.
So what do you structure your lyrics around when you are writing? How closely do you have to worry about
the rhythms, etc?
I don’t even imagine the music when I am writing, or I imagine really rubbish music. Something like The Simpsons,
just to establish a change of form.
What really shapes the writing is character. Imagining each character and if they were a song, what song would
they be?
The cast comes from a mixture of opera and musical theatre backgrounds. Did you know which roles would
be played by opera singers or musical theatre singers when you started writing?
I think we knew that the two main characters would be operatic. Jonathan imagined that what would interest you
most about their story would be the really nice noise they were making!
What was the most difficult part of the writing process?
*
Recitative: dialogue which is sung but to no recognizable melody, where the rhythm patterns follow speech.
46
The soppy bits. I find them unbearable to write, Jonathan is really good at the soppy bits, but I find them
embarrassing.
Why do you like writing opera?
You have to cut to the chase. You have to get on with it.
There are two things about writing for opera. You absolutely have to say what you mean or people won’t know what
you’re on about. The other thing is that it is quite hard. Like doing a crossword puzzle. And that can make it fun. You
can’t say the first thing you think of and you can’t just say one clever thing - you have to keep doing it.
What was the most exciting moment during the writing process?
The afternoon I worked out how to do the Sun, Moon and Wind. I remember realising “Blimey, they’re characters!
They have to be real people…” Once I had seen the characters they should be, I could just get on with writing it.
47
12. INTERVIEW WITH COMPOSER JONATHAN DOVE
When you first read The Enchanted Pig what really struck you?
I loved the cosmic scope of the story – that Flora has to travel to the end of the Milky Way to get her husband back
(with help from the Sun and the Moon and the North Wind). And the reversals – Flora obediently marries the Pig,
expecting this to be horrible, and then he turns into a handsome prince and we think everything’s going to be OK.
But then Flora is tricked by the Old Woman and she loses her husband…and a whole new part of the story begins.
Were there any musical ideas that were immediately triggered?
I didn’t hear any specific melodies straight away, but I could ‘smell’ all kinds of possibilities for musical scenes. And
there are some striking sounds in the story – the sound of Flora’s iron shoes as she walks to the end of the world, or
the frightening arrival of the Pig at the palace.
When you received the first draft from Alasdair, how did you start setting it to music? What was the first
step?
Alasdair and I talked a lot about the story before he started writing, and agreed which were the scenes we wanted
to include. We would describe the scenes to each other, and say what we thought was happening. When the libretto
arrived, there were some surprises: he had quite a few new ideas while he was writing.
For a few months I would read the libretto from time to time, letting the scenes unfold in my mind’s eye and waiting
for the music to emerge. Later on I would sit at the piano, watching the show in my imagination, and trying out
different ideas until I got one I liked.
Alasdair mentioned that you requested very little recitative and more numbers. Why was that?
In opera, between arias (the ‘songs’) and choruses, there is sometimes a kind of rapid delivery, lightly
accompanied, that is very close to the speed and contour of speech. It’s useful for getting through the plot, but it
doesn’t have tunes, so it’s not much fun to listen to. I wanted the score for The Enchanted Pig to be as tuneful as
possible.
How did you decide on the make-up of the orchestra, which instruments you would use?
I chose the accordion because it’s a folk instrument, and this is a folk-tale. The harp is wonderful for creating magic,
and so are the pitched percussion instruments (glockenspiel, vibraphone). There are quite a lot of different
percussion instruments, like bells for the wedding scene, drums for the soldiers and so on. The cello often goes with
Flora, and the trombone announces the Pig. I wanted an instrument that could be fierce and frightening, and growl
and snarl like a wild boar – but also be noble and heroic: the trombone can do all these different things. The double
48
bass supports the ensemble, and does a lot of plucking to give a ‘lift’ to all of the dance-rhythms. But the most
important instruments of all are the voices: the band is mainly there to accompany them.
Is it obvious when you see the libretto what sort of number each one will be?
No, you can’t always see where the songs will start and finish. Sometimes I try out different kinds of accompaniment
for a scene until something happens and the scene and the music start to fit together. You can’t always see which
lines are going to ‘take off’ – when I first read the libretto, I didn’t immediately see that “Isn’t love a beautiful thing?”
would turn into the refrain of a waltz. But as soon as I read the opening lines (“Destiny’s needle is delicate”) I knew
exactly what the tune should be.
Is Alasdair ever surprised by the music you write? Have you ever responded in an unexpected way?
Alasdair has some kind of music in his head when he writes the words, but I don’t want to know how it goes!
Sometimes Alasdair has already built the repetitions into the scene, as in “Princess, marry the Pig.” I could see that
was going to be a funny finale to the second act. At first glance, the words look like part of a jig. But then I thought it
would somehow be funnier if it went “Princess (thump thump) marry the Pig” – which is a different kind of dancerhythm.
What is your favourite number in the show at the moment?
What I really like is the range of different numbers and different kinds of music. The piece is quite long – an hour
before the interval and another hour after it – so it’s important to have plenty of variety.
49
13. INTERVIEW WITH MUSICAL SUPERVISOR STUART STRATFORD
Can you describe your role in the production?
This production doesn’t have a conductor. There are six members in the orchestra: an accordion player, a
percussionist, a harpist, trombone player, a cellist and a double bass, and the idea is that the accordion will lead the
ensemble during performance. My job is to rehearse the piece with the orchestra and with the singers so that it is
ready for performance. Once the production is in performance, I will watch and give notes.
When did you first become involved in the production?
A few weeks before rehearsal I went through the music with the singers. I was also involved with the audition
process. We heard several singers and decided on the cast we have now.
How has the first week of rehearsal gone? What have you been doing?
Well, often the singers come to rehearsals having learnt all their parts individually. So we will tackle each scene,
one at a time, and bring it all together. We speak through the text, making sure we know what the words mean and
then sing through the music together, making sure all the notes are correct. Then we think about how it should work
musically: where the stresses should be; should the articulation be on this word or that; should it be quieter there or
louder; faster or slower; with more freedom or less? We will decide roughly on a ‘first draft’, and then I hand over to
the director who puts the scene up on the floor and realises it spatially and physically. During rehearsals we might
find we need to make some changes - maybe someone will need more time to get off stage, so we’ll try to sing the
section slower or add in a pause. I suppose I’m in charge of refereeing. Everyone has their own ideas. I need to
make sure that at the end of rehearsals I can draw the strings together musically to make sure everyone is heading
in the same direction.
It is a lot of fun!
How is this production different to any other you’ve worked on?
It is different in the sense that we have four operatically trained voices and four musical theatre voices. Actually, a
couple of the operatic singers have a background in cabaret, so there is more of a crossover between musical
theatre and opera. It is very interesting to see how these different styles of singing can be integrated into a whole.
The different singers have different needs and different strengths. Opera singers will start rehearsals note perfect.
The musical theatre singers are great dancers, they are incredible at combining singing and movement. The
production blends the different strengths of the singers to create a very exciting show.
50
14. INTERVIEW WITH DESIGNER DICK BIRD
How did the design for the set develop?
We were very interested in what had happened to the theatre during the change [the renovation of the Young Vic]
and how it had opened up into a more ‘circular’ open space. I always loved the view that you got from the balcony in
the old days, but the lighting grid was never far from your head. Now it has opened up [the grid has been moved
higher up] like lots of layers on a wedding cake.
What I love about The Enchanted Pig is that you travel all around the universe. You start in a land that has an
authentic, medieval feel to it and then it all changes. Flora has to go off and home becomes very small and far
away. You leave earth and go into space, out into the universe and the milky way.
So, we became interested in using the theatre space almost like a model of the universe. I love that about theatre:
that a small intimate space can become vast and monumental.
Another factor in designing the set was that, unusually for a Young Vic Christmas show, we were doing an opera.
This means that because the singers are not amplified, there needs to be a particular relationship with the
performers and the audience. The audience shouldn’t look at the back of a performer’s head for too long. Because
they aren’t being miked, the singers need to stand in front of the audience [to be heard].
What is fantastic about the Young Vic is that it is built to be used in the round, which is a fantastic set-up for the
space. We needed to find a design that allowed us to keep the sense of being in the round – that the action is all
around you and your are all around the action – while allowing for the mechanical need of the actors to face the
audience.
So we created a cylindrical mirror at the back of the set. I hope that it will be reflecting something most of the time,
hopefully the audience. It restores a sense of being in the round.
We had to think about where to put the live band as well. You need to put it somewhere where it works acoustically
and visually and in the Young Vic you don’t have conventional solutions like an orchestra pit. I love to see a band on
stage.
How did you approach designing the costumes?
51
John [Fulljames, the director] and I came at it from quite different perspectives. I was caught up in the romantic,
medieval fairy tale world, and he wanted to use a contemporary analogy. So we ended up with this great collision of
both. All the costumes have medieval aspects and modern aspects: the princesses are medieval chatelaines * who
shop down at H&M; the king goes off to war with a breast plate and boxing gloves.
I tried to be very fashion conscious with the princesses. I am fascinated by how having even a slight variation in the
way you wear your school uniform can mean social death for the young audiences that come and see the
Christmas show! My stepdaughter was very useful in helping me with this aspect. I got a lot of fashion tips from her!
How did you approach the challenge of visualising the sun, moon and north wind?
What is fascinating is how we personalise the sun and moon before we understand the scientific aspect of them.
When we are little we are told about the man in the moon but as you grow up you become aware of new facts - how
the shapes of the moon are caused, the crescent and full moon – and yet we never lose our capacity to personalise
them.
Jonathan [the composer] and Alasdair [the librettist] have written very specific characters. The Moon is a very
lonely, solitary, narcissistic man in a dressing gown. We saw him as a lighthouse keeper, polishing his reflecting
lens for the sun to shine from, and guiding people at night.
Sun and Day are physically athletic types. You just know that the Sun wears nothing but gold bathing trunks!
The pig is very interesting. He has a real menace to him - very Beauty and the Beast. He’s not a little pink, Porky
Pig-type pig, but a ferocious wild boar. All tusks, and hair and bristles. Quite fearsome.
What element of the design did you find most difficult?
The biggest challenge of all, which I think people forget when they see the finished product, is how to on put an epic
piece of theatre of this scale on limited resources. The Young Vic manages to pool and share resources to make
things happen. The cooperation between departments to try and make things happen that should cost a fortune, is
wonderful. They punch well above their weight. But that is the Young Vic, that is the character of this building.
*
The mistress of a castle
52
15. COSTUME DESIGNS
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
16. ASSISTANT DIRECTOR’S DIARY
WEEK 1
MONDAY
MORNING: First day. Nerve racking.
The Model Box: we huddle around the 1:25 model of the theatre space. In the absence of designer (Dick
Bird), director John Fulljames provides a summary of the ideas. The scientific exploration of the 18th
century was a point of departure, particularly the invention of the orrery - a form of mechanical clock that
charts the orbital journeys of the planets. The spherical mechanical set, with its two revolves both utilises
the Young Vic’s unique auditorium, and enables the whole universe to be portrayed within the space.
Stylistically, this show is set to cross the bounds of fairy tale and reality – in John’s words, ’fairytale meets
H&M’.
We launch straight in with the ensemble music.
Many musical challenges are posed, not least that half of the company are trained in opera, and half
musical theatre. The show is sung through. The score is dense. It quickly becomes evident that
familiarisation with the music will take some time. Individual and chorus music coaching has been
arranged to run alongside rehearsals for the first few weeks.
AFTERNOON: Launch straight into the opening of show. With choreographer Philippe Giraudeau we
explore the entrance of the three princesses. We play with how to establish the idea of the set as an
orrery; and of the role of the people in relation to that.
TUESDAY
MORNING: We carry on where we left off yesterday with the addition of the Princesses’ father, King
Hildebrand. The work is very text based – speaking the lyrics and trying to find the colours behind it. This
seems to be a term from the opera world, and I am fascinated by this approach; we discuss what each
person hears in the dense chorus moments, whether King Hildebrand can hear Flora’s prayer, for
example. We decide he can.
AFTERNOON: A full company call. We start by doing more of the ensemble music. There are many
choruses in the piece with some very difficult harmonies. It was decided not to have a conductor, but
instead to have an musical director who will play the accordion and lead the accompaniment. This is
unusual in opera and musical theatre and relies on the company having a very close sense of complicity,
and the band being much more integrated into the show.
We have a physicality session with Philippe. It is really valuable to get everyone on their feet and
interacting with one another, especially having had an intense session seated and pouring over the score.
Philippe gets us reacting to different stimuli and working as a group. We try various things like being
caught in a wind tunnel, copying other members of the group without looking at them and trying to build a
human orrery.
We look at the first entrance - scientists carrying out an experiment on love. The question – what is love?
We work on the physicality of the scientists, giving them each an object with which to test the princesses;
stethoscopes, otoscopes, and other devices, which I fear we are not using correctly! I have a task to find
more information on 18th century public experiments.
EVENING: We have a session with Joshua Dallas who plays the Moon. The idea is that the moon is a
lighthouse keeper and will be seated at the top of a lighthouse looking out over the audience. We explore
the loneliness of the lighthouse keeper and the loneliness of the moon. The music is tantalisingly
61
beautiful. We work on the idea that the moon is sleepy and dreamy, compared to the sun who is very
awake.
WEDNESDAY
MORNING: We start with the Book of Fate and work backwards from there with the three princesses to
the point at which the sisters get the key from Flora. We look at sibling rivalry and how that might come
out in the sisters’ interactions with the book. Dot and Mab seem, on the face of it, to be like the
stereotypical Ugly Sisters of fairy tales, but both actresses are keen to defend the three dimensionality
and likeability of their characters! We also discuss whether the Book of Fate is really their horoscope and
whether they believe in astrology and fate.
AFTERNOON: We start staging the entrance of the ‘army’ and re-jigging the choreography for the
departure of King Hildebrand with the full company. Rodney and Byron (alternate Pig) will be playing a
Caddy, Josh the boxing coach and Delroy a bouncer. The idea is that King Hildebrand is going off for a
fun sports day with his mates.
We have a session on the North Winds and look at the accents. John Rawnsley talks about the flat
tongues of the Lancashire accents (think Wallace and Gromit!) Some time is spent deciding what parts
are recitative (spoken) and what sung.
THURSDAY
MORNING: The girls work on the physicality of their characters. The eldest sister, Mab, is a chav and the
middle sister, Dot, a goth. We talk a little about what that means, and I present some of the research that I
have done. Flora seems to be most affected by nature.
AFTERNOON: We are working our way through the piece chronologically and have encouragingly hit Act
2 and the arrival of the kings and King Hildebrand. They will arrive in a golf cart as their victory carriage.
But in the absence of the actual vechicle we work with chairs and start singing and stepping our way
through ‘Isn’t love a beautiful thing’. It is a very catchy number and very funny too. Philippe begins work
on the choreography. He wants to play against the lyric and use the physicality of the boxing and karate
worlds of the two kings to express their marriage proposals.
EVENING: We work with Byron and Rodney on Pig’s physicality. There is an ongoing question of what
trotters are. We explore the speed and restrictions of movement, and the body positioning; on toes and
folding at the waist. We spend some time considering how the physiology of a pig affects their interaction,
for example the placement of their eyes.
FRIDAY
MORNING: We work through the arrival of Pig in the second half of Act 2, focusing on the company’s
reaction to Pig, and storytelling from Flora’s perspective. How do we make Pig scary?
AFTERNOON: Ensemble music and sing through Act 1. With the remaining time we continue work on Act
2 and look physically at the lifts and how Pig takes Flora away.
SATURDAY
62
MORNING: With Rodney and Caryll we look at the interaction between Princess and Pig, incorporating
physicality. We look at the mud scenes and the bed scenes. Once again, the emphasis at this point has to
be on getting it musically and emotionally accurate.
WEEK 2
MONDAY
MORNING: With Byron and Anna (alternate cast)we go over the scenes that we looked at on Saturday –
working on building the relationship. It is fascinating working with two casts and seeing how differently
they interpret the same situations.
AFTERNOON: We look at ‘Marry the Pig’ and ‘The Wedding’- both big choreographic numbers. A busy
afternoon
EVENING: Sun and Day – such a fun number and Delroy and Akiya bring such a vibrant energy to the
rehearsal room! Very complex choreography: the aim is to make it as gymnastic as possible. We pursue
the idea of the song that they are forever playing games with each other. We try out lots of different ideas.
TUESDAY
MORNING: More work on the Flora and Pig scenes. We discuss the various possibilities of Flora’s
reaction to Pig, and play with these different motivations. Is she scared of Pig? Is she brave? What does
he want from her? Is he expecting them to consummate their marriage? Or is he really shy?
AFTERNOON: Ensemble music – We look at the wedding and coach journey, first musically, then
sketching in the blocking.
EVENING: Act 3 palace. We look at the servants as a chorus and the idea that they are like the servants
in the film Gosford Park; blank faced and stern, and extremely unhappy about the mud. We give each
servant a cleaning utensil and see how this motivates their chorus entries
WEDNESDAY
MORNING: Act 3 – Working with Flora and Old Woman (and Pig). Do we play the Old Woman as a
stereotypical witch or is she in disguise? It is decided that it would be quite interesting for her to seem at
the end of the first scene with Flora, like she is just a nice old lady trying to help a poor little crying girl.
There is some contention as to why Flora is crying. We discuss.
AFTERNOON: Sing through Part One! Jonathan Dove (the composer) and Alasdair Middleton (the
librettist) come in, as does David Lan (Artistic Director of the Young Vic). It seems strange to have a sing
through now, as often read throughs / sing throughs are on the first day so that everyone has an
overview. Given the complexity of the material, that would not have been possible and everyone finds it
invaluable to get a sense of how the piece progresses.
THURSDAY
MORNING: Act 5 – We look at the interaction between Flora and Adelaide; it makes us question whether
Adelaide knows, or how much she knows about Flora. It is also the first time we see a hard-nosed,
manipulative side to Flora.
63
AFTERNOON: Act 3 with the full company. We work on the choreography of the wedding. This piece is so
fast paced and it is taking some time to bed down.
EVENING: Further work on the North Winds. We begin to try out some choreography. The challenge is
what to do with something that feels so obviously like a dance number, but that actually should remain
motivated by the truth of the characters.
FRIDAY
MORNING: We start work on Act 4 ‘On princess on’ and the Milky Way with full company. We explore
ways of telling the Milky Way story physically as a company, going back to the work that we had done on
creating the human orrery, and building on the interest we had in orbits and circles. We try and achieve an
expanding orbiting mass of stars.
AFTERNOON: We work through Act 4 chronologically.
EVENING: We visit the Young Vic and everyone is excited by the building. We see the beginnings of the
set, and do a sound test.
SATURDAY
MORNING: Adelaide, Old Woman and Pig working on the sky scenes. The idea is that Pig is drugged.
We play with bringing him on in a wheelchair with a drip attached. We particularly look at the effect of the
drug on him, the Old Woman’s motivation to please her daughter, Adelaide’s relationship with her mother
(spoilt child syndrome), and the obsession with the wedding.
AFTERNOON: We continue where we left off looking at Sun and Day and introduce Flora to their scene
together.
WEEK 3
MONDAY
MORNING: Act 5 Adelaide, Flora and Pig –Pig’s bedroom scenes. Looking at the effect of the drug on
Pig, and on how Adelaide reacts to Pig. Also looking at how Flora reacts to Adelaide.
AFTERNOON: We look at ‘On princess on’ and the role of the chorus in the Act.
EVENING: North Winds. We work on the choreography.
TUESDAY
MORNING: We have a session on the slaves’ physicality and start working this into Adelaide’s aria. We
try and ratchet up the level of terror in her.
AFTERNOON: We run Act 5 chronologically.
WEDNESDAY
64
MORNING: We go back to Act 1 – the three sisters and King Hildebrand leaving. It seems a long time ago
that we last did this. Useful recap – we start playing with positioning of King Hildebrand, and
individualising and detailing the reactions of the girls.
AFTERNOON: – is all about the slaves.
EVENING: – Old Woman and Flora.
THURSDAY
MORNING: We work on ‘Isn’t love a beautiful thing’ with choreography, working to get the celebrations
and the proposals right.
AFTERNOON: We have a long awaited sing through of Part Two. Very useful. Everyone has now had a
chance to hear the whole piece. We spend the remaining time working in split rehearsal rooms with The
Book of Fate and the army physicality.
EVENING: Pig and Flora sections in Acts 3 and 4. Having sung through the whole piece it becomes clear
that the detail of their relationship trajectory in these acts is crucial. Whatever happens needs to be
enough to motivate Flora to travel across the world looking for him. We go back on an earlier decision.
Maybe Pig is less aggressive on the first night visit to her room.
FRIDAY
MORNING: We run Act 2 up until the entry of the Pig.
AFTERNOON: Continue working on the choreography of Act 3 – predominantly on the wedding, but
continuing to Pig’s palace.
SATURDAY
MORNING: We rehearse Sun and Day, and Moon simultaneously and in separate rehearsal rooms,
finishing the choreography and ideas with both. We introduce their relationship with Flora and focus on
how to clarify this part of the storytelling in the play.
AFTERNOON: Working with Anna (alternate Flora) and Byron on the end of Part One (Pig’s kidnapping
by the witch) and the preceding scenes with Pig and Flora.
WEEK 4
MONDAY
MORNING: We spend an hour on bedding in the choreography of the North Wind before tweaking ‘On
Princess On’ with the full company. We work on the way that Flora walks with the iron shoes, and the
interaction with the scientists. Does she see them? We decide that the scientists are like a cheering
squad for a marathon runner, plying her with water and willing her on, like Ellen MacArthur trying to
traverse the world.
We have a full rehearsal room now, with Buggy, cement mixer, three wheelbarrows, and numerous
implements that look dangerous!
65
AFTERNOON: Spent on Milky Way and finale chorus. We work on the orbiting with mirror balls and have
only enough time to get the finale sung out musically.
EVENING: Spent with Pigs and Floras. Much work done getting started on Act 5 - waking up scenes
where Pig is sunk into the wedding cake.
TUESDAY
MORNING: We look at Adelaide and Old Woman moments. We look at their lullaby and the sky scenes.
AFTERNOON: We try and chart a rough path for the final chorus; marking in flashes of the journeys made
in the show. We then work our way through the second part of the show.
EVENING: Spent going through Pig and Flora trajectory with Anna and Byron.
WEDNESDAY
MORNING: We have two rehearsal rooms in action; one with Philippe working on Sun and Day and
chorus choreography particularly the level of physicality in the fighting celebrations of ‘Isn’t Love a
beautiful thing’), and in the other, we spend time with Flora, Adelaide, Pig and Old Woman on the Act 5
scene - three nights in when Pig is drugged.
AFTERNOON: Continued work on the Milky Way and final chorus. We end the day with a run of Act 5.
EVENING: Spent with Pig and Flora.
THURSDAY
MORNING: We do our first run though with the full company, with Anna and Byron as Flora and Pig. It is
meant to be a stopping run, but we do not have to stop much. More people have come to see this run
than any of us were expecting. It makes us realise how many people are busied with preparing other
elements of the show. Costume seemed particularly pleased by the speed of character changes!
AFTERNOON: We look at much neglected chorus sections and spend time reaffirming and detailing the
choreography of the wedding, scientists, princesses, third night slaves, and the Milky Way.
FRIDAY
MORNING: Work on the sections that yesterdays run suggested are in most need of attention - ‘Marry the
Pig’, Adelaide and Old Woman scenes and relationship. The day is peppered with costume fittings. We
have a fitting for the Pigs. They are very excited about Dick’s creations!
AFTERNOON: We look at the Milky Way as a benevolent and unified bright force. We also look at the
servants in Act 3 and explore ways of making them more officious. How do they react to Pig and his
transformation? How much do they know about the spells? We change the blocking of several of these
chorus sections and play with the placement of the servants.
SATURDAY
66
MORNING: Mr and Mrs North Wind - we do the scene with the correct furniture and props. The
choreography is all in the timing and there is only one way to get it right.
AFTERNOON: Flora and Pig scenes. We rethink their relationship, making Pig less aggressive and
expectant, and Flora braver and more inquisitive.
WEEK 5
MONDAY
MORNING: We run Acts 1, 2 and 3 together, including the segues between the acts. We have the buggy
in the rehearsal room, so today’s call is preceded by a driving rehearsal!
AFTERNOON: Philippe works on the geese, clouds, stars, and Milky Way in Act 4. TUESDAY
TUESDAY
MORNING: We work on Acts 4 and 5.
AFTERNOON: We have invited a class of primary school aged children to watch a run through of some
scenes (and some press). We choose three sections from Part One – the opening of the show, the girls’
journey to the key and ‘Isn’t love a beautiful thing’ including the Pig’s entry. It is really vital to get there
reaction to the story so early on. Their feedback is very interesting and useful - overall they seemed to
understand and engage with the story.
Once they have gone and we have discussed the feedback they have given, we work some more on Acts
4 and 5.
WEDNESDAY
MORNING: We run the show with Caryll and Rodney for the creative team. When the run is over, we work
on parts of Act 4 and the scientists at the beginning of the Act, as well as the ending. Caryll has a flying
rehearsal in the theatre for an hour. Seeing her fly is fantastic.
EVENING: We do Pig work with Byron.
THURSDAY
Today is our day for fixing things. It is a bitty day, encompassing moments from throughout the show that
aren’t clear. The orchestra are next door, and every so often we get a wash of glorious sound. Another
one hour flying rehearsal for Caryll and Anna.
FRIDAY
Our last day in the rehearsal room. We do a rehearsal with the orchestra. Unlike those I have previously
experienced, this is a ‘walking-with-props’ run with the orchestra. The balance between the band and the
singers is all wrong in the rehearsal room space, and the singers mark much of it, but the orchestration is
wonderful, and it is so interesting to see how the instruments have been utilised to tell the story.
Tomorrow we enter the theatre, and will have to deal with a whole new set of problems thrown up by the
set, a new space, a new acoustic and a million technical considerations, not least of which is the revolve,
67
but we leave the rehearsal room knowing that we have a version of the show at the ready for everything
that the ensuing technical period will throw at us.
17. FURTHER READING
Fairy stories
http://www.surlalunefairytales.com
An excellent site about fairy tale and folklore studies featuring forty five annotated fairy tales, including their
histories, similar tales across cultures, and over one thousand, four hundred illustrations.
http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/folktexts.html
A collection of Folklore and Mythology electronic texts grouped by theme by folklore scholar, Professor D. L.
Ashliman.
http://www.endicott-studio.com/rdrm/rrMarriedToMagic.html
A site comparing several stories about animal bridegrooms.
68
http://web.utk.edu/~gwhitney/tales/east/ftpgeast.htm
Text and annotations of the Norwegian folktale East of the Sun and West of the Moon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairy_tale
The Wikipedia site features some good background information about the fairy tale and folklore studies.
Cosmology
http://www.astronomytoday.com/
A simple and easy to use site covering all aspects of astronomy and cosmology.
http://solar-center.stanford.edu/folklore/folklore.html
A site sharing many folk myths about the sun.
Opera
http://www.rohedpetergrimes.org.uk/
The Royal Opera House’s site for teachers and children, taking them through the process of rehearsing and
producing an opera.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opera
Wikipedia’s entry on opera, includes downloadable music samples.
http://www.teachopera.net
A resource site for teachers.
69