”
You have no idea how good you are,
”
Candace Fazzio said to her daughter Elizabeth Fazzio after she
performed the narration for
”
Babar the Elephant,
”
an imaginative French children’s story about the adventures of a
young elephant who leaves the jungle, visits a big city and returns
to bring the benefits of civilization to his fellow elephants.
“You have no idea how good you are,” Candace Fazzio said to her daughter Elizabeth Fazzio after she performed the narration for “Babar the Elephant,” an imaginative French children’s story about the adventures of a young elephant who leaves the jungle, visits a big city and returns to bring the benefits of civilization to his fellow elephants.
Candace, director of the The Music Academy of Gilroy, and Elizabeth remind me of my relationship with my motheras best friends.
My mom and I were a mutual admiration society, and we delighted in being together. Maybe it’s a phenomenon of being an only child, but there seems to be a particularly close bond between only mothers and daughters. Elizabeth is a fourth generation only daughter just like me.
She and her mother have been performing together for more than 20 years. A future drama major, Elizabeth said she took it for granted at the time that everybody’s mom read to them in the distinctive voices of multiple characters. At age 12, Elizabeth could already read convincingly in the voice of an old lady.
They made their first foray into the Babar kingdom around 1997 after local arts supporter Bill Flodberg introduced Candace to a recording of the classical score for Babar. Elizabeth read the narration for a preschool audience, while mom accompanied on piano.
The story of Babar first appeared in 1931 and was an immediate success. A global cultural phenomenon, his fans span generations. Babar stands alongside Mickey Mouse as one of the most recognized children’s characters in the world.
Elizabeth has designed a new puppet show to accompany the orchestrated Babar piece which includes dozens of puppets all designed and created by her. She enlisted the aid of local musician Rick Siverson, who rescued an overhead projector gathering dust in the San Jose State University music department.
Using a 40-foot roll of acetate, Elizabeth came up with an ingenious way of customizing rollers to scroll the acetate across the top of the projector so the puppets could dance across the screen. A monkey slides down a tree; crowns come down on fishing wire – it is all painstakingly created by the puppeteer herself.
Candace collaborates on timing the music just right to match the action.
“It’s really fun. It’s a different way of working with another person,” Candace said. “We have to figure out where to talk and where to begin the music so that the action fits with the mood of the piece.”
“When your mom is your teacher, it doesn’t always work,” Elizabeth said. “But she’s the easiest person I know to work with. I know the other person I am collaborating with is going to do what they say they are going to do.”
If any issues arise, Elizabeth says, “She’s my mom. I know where she lives.”
Ballet dancer, violinist, trumpet player, member of the junior high band at Brownell, and a student in Phil Robb’s chamber choir, Elizabeth went on to the Royal Holloway University of London, a campus reminiscent of the Hogwarts school in Harry Potter. She trained with an expert in Indonesian shadow puppetry and worked collaboratively to create shows of her own. She earned a master of arts degree in advanced theatre practice, puppetry, and objects theatre.
“Puppetry is a very expensive and a super time-consuming endeavor,” Elizabeth explained of the difficulty of mounting new productions. “Cutting out all the detailed puppets takes me forever. It’s a big time eater.
“In the U.S., we miss out on puppetry for grown-ups. The genre is important in most other countries for adults,” she said of why she studied the art form in Europe. “In England, there are adult puppetry festivals; in eastern Europe, puppetry is a big tradition.
“In Asia, puppetry is an important part of religious ritual. There are puppet shows that continue for 24 hours at a time.
“Puppetry is not all Kermit the Frog. There is an interest in innovation. There is currently a fabulous show called ‘War Horse’ at Lincoln Center featuring life-sized ridable horse puppets that require 3 people to operate them.”
She and her mom performed a successful Babar puppet show in March, filling the BookSmart book store in Morgan Hill.
“I spent two or three weeks up to my elbows in elephants,” Elizabeth described. “Mom would send files of music. ‘You do your bit,’ she said, ‘I’ll do mine. We’ll get together.’ ”
They will give an encore performance at 2 p.m. Sunday in Gilroy.
Puppet show
– ‘The Story of Babar, the Little Elephant’
– 2 p.m. Sunday at Gilroy United Methodist Church, 7600 Church St., Gilroy
– Program benefits the Methodist Church’s piano repair project. – Donations will be collected at the door.
– Details: 848-1064
