Little Opera is a comprehensive nine-month after-school program that challenges the assumption that opera is not for everyone. We bring together elementary aged students in grades 1-6 and professional Bay Area artists to create, rehearse, and perform an original opera.
The program quite literally puts opera in the hands of children, as students create everything--the stories, characters, libretti, music, costumes, sets, and final performance. When students create opera, it can be about anything, and in the last two years, operas have been about evil forests, licorice lemur armies, and mad candy hatters.
Our classes meet at West Portal Elementary School on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons from 4:00pm-5:30/6:00pm (grade level dependent), September 17th through mid May. A typical class might be anything from a singing workshop with a local opera singer, to a day writing story and lyrics, or an afternoon learning to mix color and design costumes. Thursday Master classes are taught by professional Bay Area artists in such topics as costume and set design, dance and choreography, stage combat, masks and puppetry, music composition and singing technique.