“The Boy Who Grew Too Fast” is a one-act opera for young people with music and libretto by Gian-Carlo Menotti. The work, written for soloists (adults and children), children's choir and chamber orchestra, remains Menotti's most popular opera for young audiences. A nine-year-old boy who has just moved to town is mocked by his classmates because of his immense size and his name, Poponel Skosvodomonit. Miss Hope, his new teacher, tells the boy of Dr Shrink, who has invented a shrinking machine. The mother takes the boy to the doctor, who says he will be able to help Poponel reach a normal size but at a price – the boy must conform to everyone else’s actions. When Mad Dog, a terrorist, comes to the school and demands a hostage, only Poponel volunteers. His act makes him grow until he overwhelms the terrorist. It is only then that he realizes his special height enables him to help people. Everyone's the way they are for a reason.
Composer Gian Carlo Menotti (1911–2007) is one of the most prominent representatives of American music of the 20th century. His contribution to opera was extraordinary, enabling it to flourish again in the unfavorable times of the avant-garde and bringing it closer to a wide audience. In 1939, he wrote the first opera for the radio medium, The Old Maid and the Thief, and even earlier, with the opera Amelie gre na ples, he became one of the most popular American composers. On the American continent, he is best known for the "Christmas opera" Amahl and the night visitors, which is also among the pioneering works written for the then new medium, television. He received the Pulitzer Prize twice for his creative work, namely for the opera with an unusual theme, Media, and for the engaging, still relevant music-theatre work Konzul, for which, as well as for all other operas, he wrote the text himself.
Menotti was unique in addressing the youngest audience and thus wrote as many as six one-act operas for children. The opera Help, help Globolinks was commissioned by the Hamburg Opera, the rest were first performed on American stages, and soon became part of the repertoire of the world's music houses. The one-act opera The Boy Who Grew Too Fast is also among popular works. The emotional text, which was also written by the composer "inspired by his own experiences", highlights the problem of social inclusion and acceptance of differences. The composer deals with the great problems of most children during the period of growing up with all poetic sensitivity, and at the same time solves all complications and problems with curiosity and with children's imaginations and his own mischievousness.
