Menotti represents something of a phenomenon in American music; before he was twenty-six he had completed, and seen produced, an opera (“Amelia Goes to the Ball”) of such sparkling gaiety and charm that it disarmed all criticism. –John Tasker Howard

Gian Carlo Menotti was born in Northern Italy in 1911 into a cultured family. He began to compose songs at the age of seven, and operas four years later. In 1923, he enrolled at the Milan Conservatory, but after his father’s death his mother took him to the United States, to the Curtis Institute of Music where he was to study with Rosario Scalero and find his lifelong friend, companion, and collaborator, Samuel Barber, who was also a Curtis student.
Celebrity arrived with Menotti’s one-act opera buffa Amelia goes to the Ball. A CBS commission followed, then ballet, a piano concerto and international success with the operas The Medium and The Telephone. Two subsequent operas won Pulitzer prizes, and his children’s opera for television Amahl and the Night Visitors (1951) has become an enduring classic.
The Boy Who Grew Too Fast is Menotti at his original best, far away from traditional operatic forms (overtures, arias, duets, and ballets) and telling a humorous tale with his trademark quirky characters and accessible dialogue. Even the recitatives become quasi-conversational, and songs are kept short to prevent any characters from dominating the flow. The first performance of The Boy Who Grew Too Fast was given on September 24, 1982, in Wilmington, Delaware.
Synopsis
On their first day back to school, the children sing a short hymn and are quickly introduced to their new classmate, Poponel, who is exceedingly tall for his age and draws much taunting and teasing. Miss Hope, the teacher, feels so sorry for Poponel that she suggests a visit to Dr. Shrinck, who is pulled away from the audience while enjoying a concert. Dr. Shrinck’s reducing machine succeeds in bringing Popnel down to a normal size, but there is a condition: Poponel must conform with the other children in all ways. Should he fail, he will return to his overgrown state.
After Poponel returns to school, Mad Dog, a fugitive, comes busting into the classroom and threatens to take all the children prisoner. Miss Hope begs him to let the children go, but Mad Dog decides to keep one child, and Poponel volunteers. Poponel then slips away to the broom closet, and, since he hasn’t conformed with the other children, he grows back to his normal size. He reenters, overpowers Mad Dog, and saves the day. Miss Hope sings the final moral of the opera:
Be glad of what you are,
Whether fat or thin,
Short or tall,
Black or white.
Be glad to be yourself;
Don’t try to be another.
For what you are
Nobody else can be.