New York's Met Opera to stage opera for toddlers

NEW YORK - AFP

The Metropolitan Opera of New York is wooing a younger audience -- make that very, very young.

It is putting on an opera for toddlers to see how they react to the music and singing.

The 40-minute show, called "BambinO," will run from April 30 to May 5, offering 10 free concerts. It premiered last year in Manchester, England.

The work was composed by Lliam Paterson, a young Scottish composer, and will be performed by an ensemble of four young artists.

The show is strictly for people from six to 18 months of age, plus their caregivers.

The story is about a bird and an unrelated chick that hatches from a golden egg, and how the bird teaches the chick to get out on its own and fly.

"In the Met's never-ending quest to develop audiences of the future, we've decided to start at the very beginning," Met general manager Peter Gelb said in a statement Thursday.

"This should be a formative experience for the infants of NYC."            For this gig, the Met has teamed up with researchers from Columbia University who will examine how the toddlers respond to the opera.