This is a story about the San Francisco Opera's "Magic Flute for Kids," with Mozart's music, that I saw this afternoon, with my friend Janos. He writes stories about operas, but he asked me to write this one because, he said, I am a kid and he isn't. I said OK, if he takes care of the spelling, and finds out the names of the singers.

I also must say that this was not my first opera. My Grannie Susan and my Grandpa George have been ushers in the War Memorial Opera House for many years (Grannie says more than 30), and they let me see operas and, especially, ballet, which I like even more. For operas, my favorite is The Pearl Fishers because it has dancing in it, and I also saw half of an opera about a prison.

The first thing I thought when I saw the stage today, with the chairs for the orchestra and lots of kids sitting on the floor, was that there is no space for dancing.

I saw only the chairs for the musicians because they didn't come in until the show began. They were led by Donald Runnicles, the conductor, banging on a big drum, and they played music like a marching band. The boss of the Opera, Pamela Rosenberg, came out to welcome us, and she said "girls and boys," putting girls first, but that's OK with me.

In the back of the stage, there was a big picture of the balcony, looking back at the real balcony of the house, and neither Janos nor I know what that meant. It showed us that we were in the Opera House, but I already knew that.

After playing what Mr. Runnicles said was part of the overture, the bird-catcher Papageno (played by Lucas Meachem) came through the audience, and he was talking to us for a long time about all kinds of things, then suddenly mentioned this prince, Tamino, and Sean Panikkar, who played the prince, sang, and that was very beautiful — only when Jane Archibald sang the Queen of the Night, with very high notes, was as good.

There were words I didn't understand in the story — and almost nothing in the singing, and I didn't see supertitles either, which helped in The Pearl Fishers — such as "trial" and "initiation." Also, I don't know what "incongruous" means, which is what Janos said when suddenly the story stopped and Mr. Runnicles introduced the instruments in the orchestra, and we had to yell out the names of each. With only one hour for the whole show, half the time was about something else. Then there was more Magic Flute, which is a very strange story, and then more about the instruments — some musicians playing "Old McDonald Had a Farm," others music from "Star Wars" — and then suddenly make-believe animals were all over the place, in the audience, dancing to Papageno's magic bells, and that was cool, especially because I didn't think there would be any ballet.

Then Papageno said the prince and the lady he loved (Kimwana Doner was the name of the very good singer) "reached the height of human pleasure" and I think that's the same as "happy ending." Oh, and when Papageno wanted to kill himself before because of Nikki Einfeld (the really cute Papagena he didn't meet yet), Ms. Rosenberg came out, dressed as a golden tree, with a noose hanging from her, so Papageno could hang himself. In the program, there was a star next to Ms. Rosenberg's name, and on the bottom of the page, there was the explanation: "San Francisco Opera debut." Even for her first time, I thought she was a very funny tree.

I didn't understand the story (what kind of name is "Monostatos" and what was he doing there?), but I agree with Janos that the important thing is the music, and that's really nice. I kind of liked everything, but would have liked less talk and more music and dance. Maybe I will think differently when I grow up, but now I think music is the most important thing about opera. As the prize for writing this review, I got a CD of The Marriage of Figaro and I will listen to it soon. Bye now.