Interview: Theatre Life with Rachel Portman

Today’s subject Academy and Emmy Award winning composer Rachel Portman has a career that includes scoring for over100 films, television and a stage musical of Little House on the Prairie. This week her foray into opera can be seen and heard in the Terrace Theater At Kennedy Center as Washington National Opera (WNO) presents The Little Prince as their annual family opera offering. The show runs for only five performances between December 12th and 14th. WNO first performed it 2014. It premiered at Houston Grand Opera in 2003.

Ms. Portman’s wide range of film scoring includes Marvin’s Room, The Cider House Rules, Benny and Joon, Chocolat, and Emma. The latter garnered her with an Academy Award for Best Original Musical Comedy Score. She also has two other Academy Award Nominations to her credit for her work on The Cider House Rules, and Chocolat.

Other awards include a Primetime Emmy Award and a BMI Film and TV Award as well as many award nominations.

Her stage musical Little House on the Prairie was directed by WNO’s Artistic Director Francesca Zambello and had productions at the Guthrie Theatre and Paper Mill Playhouse before going out on a national tour. all three productions starred one of the TV show’s original stars Melissa Gilbert.

Opera can be a tough nut to crack with young audience members. The perception of opera is that it’s just people standing on a stage singing (park and bark) and that all operas are twelve hours long (think The Ring Cycle). Read on as to why Rachel thinks The Little Prince is the perfect introduction to opera for everyone.

Rachel Portman’s career is a truly distinguished one to be sure. If you know her work from a film, please consider making it ONLY about the art and grab some tickets to WNO’S The Little Prince at Kennedy Center.

Rachel Portman is living her theatre, film, and opera lives to the fullest.

At what age did you get interested in music?

I was interested in music from my very first piano lesson when I was 7 and soon after spent all my spare time playing and working tunes out. 

Where did you receive your training?

I studied music and composition at Oxford.

What was your first professional job for film scoring?

The film producer David Puttnam (Chariots of Fire, The Mission) gave me my first professional job which was to write the score for a film he was producing aptly titled Experience Preferred but Not Essential. I had just left Oxford, and my only former experience was writing music for a student film called Privileged.

When you were approached to turn The Little Prince into an opera, what was the most appealing thing about the project that made you say yes?

I had three young children at the time and was interested to write an opera for them that would introduce them to opera and foster a love of opera. The Little Prince appealed to me because it’s a story that can be appreciated by children and grown ups alike.

How long did the creation of the opera take from first ideas to first performance?

It took about two years from start to the first performance.

Can you please talk about the musical styles that are in The Little Prince?

The Little Prince has a cast of colorful characters, and I enjoyed portraying them in different styles. For example, the Prince’s music is full of innocence and longing (I often used a solo oboe) whereas the Snake’s music is sinuous and sinister (I characterized him with major 7ths).

What is the opera’s instrumentation would and did you do your own orchestration?

I decided to keep a traditional orchestral instrumentation to tell the story and did all the orchestration.

When you score a film, I imagine there is less talk about orchestra budget and how many musicians you can score for. As we all know, that is always a sticking point in musical theatre. Were there any discussions about how big your orchestra would be for The Little Prince?

I recall I was offered an orchestra of between 26 and 30 players. That seemed fine to me as the story is quite delicate. However, I could have made it work with a larger or even smaller orchestra.

You wrote the music for the stage version of Little House on The Prairie. Can you please talk about the experience of putting that show together and if the opportunity arose, would you consider writing another musical theatre piece?

I enjoyed the challenge of writing a musical. It’s a completely different discipline to writing an opera or film score. It’s a much longer process – it took about six years, and I wrote many songs with the lyricist which ended up not in the show as it developed. I loved the collaboration and setting lyrics, something which I’ve done much more of since. I have no plans to venture into writing another musical at this stage!

Of all the films you have scored in your distinguished career, which stand out as personal favorites?

My personal favorites are Chocolat, Never Let Me Go and The Cider House Rules.

For families that have never been to the opera before, why do think The Little Prince is a good introduction to the genre?

My intention from the outset was to write an opera that a family would enjoy so the music is melodic and accessible. The Little Prince is written to be sung by a boy, and I believe children enjoy seeing young performers as they can identify with them. The story is full of wonderful characters and wisdom appealing to both adults and children. It has imaginative staging and a lively children’s chorus who sing “The Cranes and the Stars”.

Can you please tell us what projects you have coming up in 2026?

A film for Netflix, a commission for saxophone and orchestra, a choral commission, an orchestral overture, a work for organ … and more.

Special thanks to Kennedy Center's Deputy Director of Public Relations Amanda Fischer for her assistance in coordinating this interview.