Let's Make an Opera (music by Benjamin Britten; book & lyrics by Eric Crozier; produced by Peter Lawrence and the Show-of-the-Month Club), which closed at week's end, was half harrowingly cute, half harmlessly dull. At the start, some children and their elders decide to produce an opera, using the audience for chorus. While the cast rehearses in "the school auditorium," Musical Director Norman Del Mar flirtatiously coaches the onlookers through various songsone of which turns the audience into owls, chaffinches and turtledoves. After that, the opera itselfa period tale about a chimney sweepis performed.
The stage tale, finally enacted, is no worse,...