By Sarah Dingle
An opera composed by 11-year-old British girl Alma Deutscher has just had its world premiere in Vienna.
The accomplished violist and pianist wrote the work Cinderella at age 10.
A full length opera, it’s set in an opera house run by Cinderella’s wicked stepmother.
Alma played the music on piano for the first performance, which she said had been a long time coming.
“It’s really, really exciting because after all my work — composing it and then orchestrating it and then working with the singers, then finally working with the orchestra and the conductor — it’s actually now all coming together and coming alive,” she said.
Born in the UK to British and Israeli parents, Alma began composing from a very young age.
Her first attempt at composition was at age four when she began writing an opera about a pirate called Don Alonzo.
She composed her first opera, The Sweeper of Dreams, at age seven and gained national recognition when it only narrowly missed out on a place in the final of a contest for adults, held by the English National Opera.
She explained to America’s Today Show that moments of inspiration often struck her when holding her skipping rope.
“The funny thing is that when I try to get beautiful melodies and it usually never comes and my mind just goes blank,” she said.
“But when I am resting or even in bed or skipping with my rope, then melodies stream into my head.