Opera for the Young presents a FREE Family Opera Day featuring Barber of Seville at the Overture Center on June 3rd. A chorus of students from Madison Youth Choirs will appear onstage, performing right alongside Opera for the Young’s professional artists.
About FAMILY OPERA DAY. Opera for the Young’s adaptation of Barber of Seville will bring Rossini’s opera to life for children. Vivid portrayals for both professional and student cast members draw young audiences into the story’s universal themes: honesty is the best policy, true love will find a way, and it’s what is on the inside that counts. Children from Madison Youth Choirs will play the chorus of Seville High School Students, and student actors will be the Police Officer and Basil. Complementary workshops in design, music, and movement precede the performance, put on with assistance from the Madison Children’s Museum, Madison Youth Choirs, and little om BIG OM. Supertitles will be projected and the entire audience will be taught the chorus music so they can sing from their seats. In addition, Overture Center will live-stream the performance, allowing families unable to attend in person to participate as well. Following the performance, families will receive discussion questions and activities to continue the learning experience at home.
About Opera for the Young. Opera for the Young brings live, professional opera to elementary school audiences. All productions are fully staged, sung in English and created especially for children. Students appear onstage in chorus and cameo roles. OFTY audiences become acquainted with the original scores of master composers, set in contexts relevant to kids' 21st century lives. OFTY’s Barber of Seville is updated to the 1950s; Donizetti’s The Elixir of Love is set in the old west; Grétry’s Beauty and the Beast is set in the exotic Indian Ocean; Mozart’s The Magic Flute set in outer space. OFTY’s repertoire also includes an original opera by Gendel & Garton Edie, Super Storm!, Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance, Dvorak’s Rusalka, A Mermaid’s Tale, Humperdink’s Hansel and Gretel, Massenet’s Cinderella, and a work based on the masterpieces of Offenbach, Gluck and Monteverdi entitled, Orpheus Returns. Opera for the Young annually presents 200 performances, reaching 75,000 children every school year throughout Wisconsin, northern Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota and Kentucky.
About OFTY’s professional artists. Every OFTY production features four professional singers and one pianist. Professional cast members are selected after competitive auditions held each spring in Chicago and Madison. All professional roles are triple cast. Recent cast members have included a Grammy award winner, Metropolitan Opera national audition winners, several Met regional winners, artists with masters degrees, many with doctorates, choristers from the Lyric Opera of Chicago and members of the Chicago Symphony Chorus. All are conservatory graduates and active performing artists.
Further information about Opera for the Young is available at www.operafortheyoung.org
