With the 10th edition of Opera baby, we present the final premiere dedicated to the youngest audiences of the 2024/2025 season.

Beatrice Baruffini’s direction enhances the simplicity of lines and shapes, drawing inspiration from the aesthetic, philosophical, and artistic worlds of Iela and Enzo Mari and Bruno Munari. Using object theatre in the spirit of Munari means exploring the limits of the object itself, while maintaining a strong focus on formal, compositional, and poetic elegance. The references to the compositional aesthetics (especially found in children’s picture books) of Iela and Enzo Mari emerge through the use of bold, primary colors and easily recognizable forms: thus, the set, costumes, and props are both essential and symbolic in nature.

In this performance, the music—curated by Anna Pedrazzini—becomes a game, a prank, a joke. But it is also movement, and then stillness; action, but also waiting. It’s a music that reveals the sudden, unfiltered shift from one emotion to another. In it, we recognize the impulsive behavior typical of very young children—but also, in a way, of the old Falstaff himself.

A ball becomes a belly, a head, or an animal’s body. Through play, it transforms endlessly—and between one prank and the next, it may even become Falstaff! Inspired by Giuseppe Verdi’s masterpiece, this performance for early childhood explores play as a universal language, transporting young audiences into an enchanted world where anything is possible. A poetic adventure that sparks the imagination and celebrates creativity.