There are many online resources that offer children an entertaining introduction to the world of opera.
By Heidi WalesonMay 26, 2020 4:10 pm ET
Years ago, when my daughters were too young for the opera house, they watched Ingmar Bergman’s enchanting 1975 movie of “The Magic Flute” (in Swedish) so many times that the videocassette wore out. Now, the opera house can only be the screen, but fortunately, there’s a lot more opera programming for children and teens available at home.
The Metropolitan Opera is offering Free Student Streams. Each week, one opera is available for 48 hours, beginning on Wednesdays at 5 p.m. EDT. Preparatory materials are available all week, and live Zoom and Facebook advice sessions on Mondays and Tuesdays at 4 p.m. EDT offer teaching strategies. While these can be more geared to educators, parents do tune in and get suggestions on adapting the lessons. Also, on Wednesdays at 4 p.m. kids and adults can Zoom in for an enjoyable Artist Chat with members of the opera’s cast and production team. This week’s opera is Donizetti’s “La Fille du Régiment” in the madcap Laurent Pelly staging with two scintillating young leads, Pretty Yende and Javier Camarena. Spoiler alert: Mr. Camarena nails all nine high C’s in “Ah! mes amis” and does an encore. Beginning June 15, a new eight-week program, Met Opera Global Summer Camp, will have free weekly opera streams along with daily, hands-on creative projects led by teaching artists and educators. The first Camp opera will be Engelbert Humperdinck’s “Hansel and Gretel” in the creepily fabulous Richard Jones production.
The Glimmerglass Festival has commissioned several delightful operas for performance by the company’s youth chorus. “Odyssey,” “Robin Hood,” and “Wilde Tales,” which combines Oscar Wilde’s “The Happy Prince” and “The Remarkable Rocket,” are all under one hour long, rehearsed and produced at a high level, and available on YouTube via the company’s website. Each deftly combines catchy choral writing and featured roles tailored to teenage performers with more advanced music for two singers from the company’s young artist program.
Kids 10 years old and up may also enjoy another contemporary opera: Stefan Weisman’s “The Scarlet Ibis,” available on demand from HERE on Facebook. This sensitive piece is about two young brothers, the elder of whom pushes his disabled sibling (played by an expressive puppet and sung by a countertenor) to be “normal” and goes too far.
Several opera companies have created digital content for children in quarantine. Each week, London’s Royal Opera House posts a new collection of lively, interactive lessons on the Learning Platform page of its website. These are tied to ballets and operas like “Hansel and Gretel” and “The Magic Flute,” but can be enjoyed even without access to a full performance. The skill-based lessons, geared toward specific age ranges, have precise instructional steps, videos, and “follow the bouncing ball” scores, and are easy for children and parents to follow. Kids can do physical and vocal warm-ups, learn a song (“Little brother, dance with me” from “Hansel”), compose music to tame animals in “Flute,” or do art projects, such as constructing food props or a scale model of the opera house stage. Entertaining supplementary short videos include a Monty Python-style animation of the story of “Carmen” and a visit with the Royal Opera children’s chorus.
LAOpera at Home, along with living-room recitals and streamed full operas, has regularly updated, kid-friendly features on the “Opera Family Time” section of the site. Singers Nathan and Jamie (and Esther the dog) post weekly “Sing Out Loud” videos. Each roughly 20-minute episode is a lighthearted look at how to have fun at home, whether it’s a pajama party or tidying up. There are arias (sung while exercising or cooking) and a singalong with familiar tunes (“On Top of Spaghetti”). You can also watch the time-lapse creations of an 11-year-old fan who built his own versions of LA Opera productions out of Legos, and abbreviated, child-friendly adaptations, such as “Figaro’s American Adventure,” which takes on “The Barber of Seville.”
From the opposite coast, the Lincoln Center at Home page offers a new Pop-Up Classroom every weekday at 2 p.m. EDT: Lincoln Center teaching artists lead lessons in, for example, choreographing a dance in your living room, or creating and singing a recitative; the artists interact with the attendees through the Facebook comments feature. To practice some basic musical skills, Chicago Opera Theatre has brief videos about how to do a vocal warm-up, singing posture, and conducting a four-beat pattern. Lyric Opera of Chicago offers “Kids Corner,” featuring a downloadable family opera activity book suitable for children of elementary-school age, and brief videos on, for example, creating a one sentence opera.
For a quick, fun introduction to opera, the HiHo Kids video “Kids Meet an Opera Singer” on YouTube is charming: The soprano Angel Blue chats about her life, work and costume with several delighted children; demonstrates the soprano range; and attempts, unsuccessfully, to shatter a glass with her voice. And you can’t go wrong with the vintage Sesame Street opera singer cameos, easily findable on YouTube. Evergreen examples include bass Samuel Ramey’s fantasia on the letter L to the tune of “The Toreador Song”;Marilyn Horne, dressed as Cleopatra, performing “C is for Cookie” with lots of chest voice; and Denyce Graves singing Elmo a “Habanera” lullaby, aided by a posse of operatic sheep. Not “The Magic Flute,” but delightful.
—Ms. Waleson writes on opera for the Journal and is the author of “Mad Scenes and Exit Arias: The Death of the New York City Opera and the Future of Opera in America” (Metropolitan).
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