The Story of the Silly Baby Mouse, Music to the Cartoon, Op. 56 (1939)

Note:

Score for the cartoon-film by Mikhail Tsekhanovsky.

Shostakovich wrote much music for children, but nothing more delightful than this miniature cartoon-opera, intended for very young children, between the ages of 4 and 10.

It is based on a well-known story by Samuil Marshak, one of the most popular of Russian children’s writers:

The silly little mouse won’t go to sleep, so his mother seeks help from her neighbours, the duck, the pig, the toad, the horse and the pike. No-one can help. Eventually the cat succeeds in singing the silly little mouse to sleep. The next morning however the cat is discovered to have run away with the little mouse. Led by the dog, the other characters manage to rescue the little mouse from the cat, just as she is about to eat it.

Shostakovich originally wrote this charming through-composed opera, filled with cod folk-tunes and nursery rhymes, for a film. But it equally well makes a fine and easily performable children’s opera.in the theatre or on the concert stage, an ideal companion to Prokofiev’s evergreen ‘Peter and the Wolf’.

Note by Gerard McBurney

Cast List:
   MRS. MOUSE: High soprano
   MRS.CAT: Soprano
   DUCK: Mezzo-soprano
   THE HORSE: Tenor
   MRS. PIG: Baritone [contralto]
   THE TOAD: Bass
   POLKAN, THE DOG: Bass
   BABY MOUSE: Speaking part
   PIKE: Mute part
   NARRATOR

Synopsis:
The silly little mouse won’t go to sleep to the strains of a lullaby, so its mother seeks help from her neighbors, the duck, the pig, the toad, the horse and the pike. No one can help. Eventually the cat succeeds in singing the silly little mouse to sleep. The next morning, however, the cat is discovered to have abducted the little mouse. Led by the dog, the other animals manage to rescue the little mouse from the cat just as she is about to eat it.