Orken im Zauberwald

The 70-minute children's opera "Orken im Zauberwald" tells the story of the boy Orken, who is bewitched into a rat by the evil wizard Grindor in an enchanted forest. Finally, the fairy Demirades, who is freed by him, manages to defeat the wizard.

In the course of the play there are several interesting changes of perspective. Orken takes pity on the poor old man. As soon as he shakes hands with him, the evil wizard turns him into a rat.

In his castle, Grindor complains that his pet "breaks down". He also knows that he should feed it, but is too lazy to look for the spell book to look up the spell. This is typical child behavior, and children will easily recognize it. But in this case, it is they (or rather their identification figure Orken) who suffer from this behavior.

After the fairy Demirades, who is locked up in the cellar, explains to him how he can free her, Orken drags himself with his last strength back to the castle to look for the powerful fairy ring. But he is very disappointed when the fairy confesses to him that she is much too weak to defeat the wizard. But after freeing the other imprisoned beings, together they are now strong enough to do what none of them was able to do alone.

In the process, we find in the boy some patterns of behavior typical of such situations. On the one hand, he admires the wizard who holds him captive, even finds him nice (Stockholm syndrome). In this fairy tale, the wizard has "enchanted" his mind so that he no longer feels anything. When the fairy frees him from this "spell", he calls her a "devilish bird", because he suddenly realizes how badly he feels (a situation typical in therapy).

This children's opera is of the "Magic Flute" type, i.e. an opera with spoken texts, which experience shows children can follow more easily. And of course there is a comic character (here: Grindor).

Below you find a 5 minute trailer of a performance with children of the 3rd and 4th classes of the Königswieser Primary School Munich (as well as two older pupils).

Unfortunately, there is only a German edition available at the moment.

You are welcome to make your own translation.