CONOR MITCHELL’S children's play The Musician is a prequel to The Pied Piper of Hamelin, known to most through the version by the Brothers Grimm and the poetry of Robert Browning.

Written, directed, composed and choreographed by Mitchell for the Belfast Ensemble, it's also an introduction to operatic style and convention, challenging children to embrace the power of music while also engaging in what is, effectively, a morality tale.

The story is of a boy alone in the world. Into his path steps a strange musician, taunting him with haunting melodies which entrance the boy. He learns to play the stranger’s flute-like pipe and, as his power and musicality grow, so his kind nature is consumed and he responds to the unkindness of others with harsh and devastating consequences.

The cast have fully trained operatic voices and the socially distanced orchestra — visibly arrayed around the raked stage — fill the air with strange and wondrous chords and sequences. Most of the words are sung and the whole production is impressively stylised, creating a pantomime effect in which exuberantly colourful costumes illuminate a stage constantly transformed by light.

As a lesson in the technical brilliance of theatre and the power of music, The Musician succeeds. But as a drama fit to hold the imagination of children it is less effective — something at its heart is absent. We don’t experience empathy for the boy, the story is awkwardly fabricated and the power of the music is limited because the innocence it overthrows is never effectively established.

Sarah Richmond, Matthew Cavan, Rebecca Murphy, Paul Carey Jones and Maeve McGreevy sing and perform with excellent precision, but keeping children fully engaged may be a struggle if, perhaps, their hearts remain unswayed. The play falls short of the brilliance of the original Pied Piper, with which, for empathy, narrative purpose, language and demonic enchantment, it must of necessity be compared.

Happily, though, this is theatre that avoids the common sin of talking down to children and its music, conducted by Tom Brady, is rich and sophisticated.