Ravel: L’Enfant et les sortilèges

Setting a charming text by Colette, Ravel’s richly-scored opera L’Enfant et les sortilèges (The Child and the Spells) is a lyric fantasy whose cast includes fairy tale characters, crockery, plants and little animals which come to life to chastise the child who has been tormenting them. However, all ends happily when the child learns compassion. Ravel’s life-long fascination with the exotic orient found inspiration in three poems by Tristan Klingsor, brought together in his ravishing and enduringly popular song cycle Shéhérazade.