Camille Saint-Saëns and the Carnival in His Pocket

A child accompanies Camille Saint-Saëns — white beard, tiny round glasses, a green leather notebook tucked under his arm — through a fantastical lantern-lit carnival where animals are the performers. It’s a secret outing: nobody else gets to come, and nobody is allowed to see what’s inside the notebook. At each stop Camille scribbles a musical portrait and whispers the joke he’s putting in — the elephant dancing a tiny waltz on a double bass, the tortoises crawling through a stolen can-can, the pianists caged like trained animals practicing scales. As we move through the carnival, he gradually reveals why the notebook must stay secret: he’s the most famous serious composer in Paris, and his colleagues would never forgive him for this silliness.