Seven 5th graders sat in the darkened theater, silently eating their popcorn and candy, drinking their pop with eyes glued to the screen.  One boy in particular sat forward in his seat, mouth slightly open, completely engaged in the action in front of him.  This happens everyday in America, usually for the latest action film, but not today.  Today was a 3 1/2 hour opera by Mozart, sung in Italian by performers and conductor from places around the globe.  Some people might say that opera is dying, that the art form is no longer relevant.  However, the looks on my students’ faces tell me differently.  After all, a good story is a good story.

The story doesn’t begin this way of course.  The minute I mention the word “opera” I’m met with groans and eye rolls.  In fact I can get the same reaction from adults – I was one of them.  I saw my first opera, La Traviata, while I was in college and I was bored to tears.  I hadn’t looked at the synopsis, had no idea what the story was about and it was in ITALIAN.  I couldn’t wait for it to be over and I did not attend another opera until five years ago when I lucked into a relationship with the Metropolitan Opera.  Little did I know that not only would the characters and stories affect me the way that they have, but it would change my students and how they perceive the genre completely.

The first year I had the opportunity to take my students to the opera, I had no idea how it would go over and our first opera was Carmen.  After an introduction of the characters, voice parts and any special details, we got into the story, acting out the synopsis and getting to know the characters as people, which was difficult when one of the characters tended to make some questionable life decisions, if you get my drift.  I’ll be honest, after seeing the opera, I was afraid I had lost my job, especially when at intermission, one of my little girls asked me why the man kept sniffing Carmen’s leg.  That was a difficult one to answer!  The best part came at the end however, as Carmen was about to get killed, two of my girls were so involved in the story that they were talking to the screen, telling Carmen to “just go!”.  The conversation at school later that week was very interesting as they shared what they had learned from the opera.  There are consequences to our actions, sometimes really bad consequences and they decided that Carmen did not make very good life choices.  What made it really relevant was when they compared her bad choices to some choices they had made and how they should think before they act.

Since then I have taken quite a few students to the opera.  It became so popular that students would run their permission slips out to their parent picking them up from school to make sure they would be on the list for the next opera.  Opera has spoken to students who don’t seem to fit in anywhere else, an autistic student who corrected the pronunciation of Turandot to the host on the screen, to a group who began singing an aria with Renee Fleming during The Merry Widow.  Students who were so excited about what they had seen that they couldn’t wait to share their experience with incoming 5th graders.

These are students who, when asked about the opera by other patrons at the theater, are able to speak intelligently about the characters and the plot. Opera has been a way to connect several generations and these young people have become an encouragement to opera lovers who have been concerned about the death of a beautiful genre.  So what is the key to getting kids excited about what many consider to be dying art forms?  Stories.  Great stories that never grow old, that continue to speak to us intellectually and emotionally.  Great music that speaks to our heart and soul.  Great symphonies, ballet and opera aren’t dying, they just need teachers who are willing to do more than share theory and history.  To keep great art relevant we must tell and sing their stories to the next generation and they too will be on the edge of their seats.