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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

LSO children's concert

9 replies

PottedPate · 09/03/2026 15:55

Genuinely open minded as to whether I'm being unreasonable or not.

I took DD to the London Symphony Orchestra family concert on Sunday. The title was "The King who tried to change his Fate" and it was billed as "an introduction to symphonic storytelling" for ages 7+ (although there were a lot of younger kids there). The music was wonderful as you'd expect. The story was this:

A king meets a fortune teller and is told his fate, which is that his soon-to-be-born daughter will marry the son of a serving girl. The king isn't happy about this and so tricks the serving girl into coming with him into the woods and then murders her with his sword.

Sixteen years later, the king comes across a teenage boy. The boy is rude and the king is about to execute him when an old woman pleads for mercy. She tells the king that she found the boy as a baby: for weeks her goat had been going out to the woods and coming back with dry udders, she decided to follow the goat to the woods and came across the murdered woman and the baby that had somehow been born from her corpse. The baby had been suckling the goat to survive.

Of course after various other twists and turns the princess marries the boy.

Am I being unreasonable to think that this is unsuitable for seven year olds? I'm in my 40s and found it pretty disturbing. I get that it's a fairy tale, and fairy tales are often violent and nasty, but butchering heavily pregnant women seems extreme.

AIBU?

OP posts:
tootyflooty · 09/03/2026 16:01

I'm with you on this, what happened to Peter and the wolf, that's a great introduction to music for children.

Sprattic · 09/03/2026 16:03

A lot of fairy tale stories are dark but I’m inclined to agree - really weird, especially the baby born from her corpse. I’m sure there might have been a more pleasant tale to tell?

NotAnotherScarf · 09/03/2026 16:05

Err bambi's mum dies, the wicked witch poisons snow white, Simba's dad is murdered...all Disney

And don't get me started on Jerry smashing in Tom's face with a frying pan or Elmer Fudd trying to shoot a wrabbit

It's a fairy story, the boy didn't die and good triumphs

PottedPate · 09/03/2026 16:09

NotAnotherScarf · 09/03/2026 16:05

Err bambi's mum dies, the wicked witch poisons snow white, Simba's dad is murdered...all Disney

And don't get me started on Jerry smashing in Tom's face with a frying pan or Elmer Fudd trying to shoot a wrabbit

It's a fairy story, the boy didn't die and good triumphs

Bambi's mother wasn't stabbed in the back, and Bambi wasn't born from her dead body...

Also, I'm not sure that good did triumph - the king should have been dethroned and spent the rest of his life in prison!

I do appreciate your point of view though - thanks!

OP posts:
TunnocksOrDeath · 09/03/2026 16:09

Don't get me started on that one about under-age delinquents pushing an elderly faith-healer / baker into her own oven and nicking all her valuables before skipping off into the woods. It's an outrage! Will no one think of the children?

MauriceTheMussel · 09/03/2026 16:10

I was fine until the whole “baby’s been hanging out near his mum’s corpse”… made me think of that bath tub scene in Dexter.

I don’t think Lenny B would have approved either!

PottedPate · 09/03/2026 16:14

Tbh it made me think of accounts I've read of the Rwandan genocide - maybe that's why it got to me so much.

OP posts:
Ohfuckrucksack · 09/03/2026 17:27

I think you're seeing it through adult eyes.

Children are not usually as sensitive (with some exceptions) and often just go with the flow.

It would make an interesting conversation with them though - I would probably focus most on the music/instruments.

NotAnotherScarf · 09/03/2026 21:15

PottedPate · 09/03/2026 16:09

Bambi's mother wasn't stabbed in the back, and Bambi wasn't born from her dead body...

Also, I'm not sure that good did triumph - the king should have been dethroned and spent the rest of his life in prison!

I do appreciate your point of view though - thanks!

You are so polite.... thank you. Are you sure you should be on mn, normally I'd be called a f ing idiot!

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