What do Hayflower and Feltslipper hear Daddy and Mummy talking about when they think no one’s listening? And what is growing in Mummy’s tummy? Is it a car? A dog? A cat? The imagination of the sisters knows no bounds – but soon they understand that it’s a baby. It’s both exciting and weird, becoming a big sister. Especially for Feltslipper, who has been the baby of the family so far. Maybe she’ll be in the way now, so she may as well run away right now!

The opera is based on a popular Finnish series of children’s books about the two little girls Hayflower and Feltslipper by Tiina and Sinikka Nopola. The colourful, charming music has been written by the Finnish composer Markus Fagerudd, who has written several operas for children – most recently for the Savonlinna Festival in 2008. His music is rhythmic and sparkling and combines beautiful melodies with sound-paintings and fun effects in a style all his own. 

The staging is in the hands of the Swedish director Bernt Höglund, who throughout his long career as a director, actor and dramatist has made it his specialty to work with theatre that is expressed by a combination of puppets, actors, singers and musicians. Höglund’s work as a director has taken him all around the world to opera and theatre stages in Europe, Africa and Asia, but in Denmark we have not yet had the opportunity to experience his wonderful universe.

The opera has earlier been performed at several Finnish children’s theatres, at the Opera Workshop of the Malmö Opera and Music Theatre in Sweden, and in the autumn it had its Russian premiere in St. Petersburg.

In the Danish National Opera’s version of Hayflower and Feltslipper, opera and animation theatre are mixed in a playful and humorous form.

The opera has been given its very own Danish form and its very own expression, developed through workshops with the composer, director, stage designer, puppet maker and the whole cast.

In a playful, magical form, past and present meet on stage in a story that involves emotions that most children will be able to recognize and reflect in themselves.