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Schoolkids to present operas
Olympiad features works from 4 elementaries
By Rebecca Cline Howard
Deseret News music critic
Being a part of the Olympics is a once-in-a-lifetime event, especially if you also happen to be in elementary school. But for some Salt Lake schoolchildren, it will be a reality this year.
The Cultural Olympiad in Salt Lake has expanded its reach to include offerings from four elementary schools — each of which is writing, producing and mounting its own miniature opera.
"It's kind of a joining together of Imagination Celebration opportunities and Utah Opera programs," said Paula Fowler, Director of Education and Community Outreach at the Utah Opera. Fowler explained that each summer, Utah Opera offers workshops for schoolteachers, instructing them on how to create original in-house operas. The program, called "Music! Words! Opera!" provides the teachers with the curriculum, know-how, and later, support, to put together an opera at their schools.
"A lot of them will go back and make a whole opera production," Fowler said. It's a lot of work, and the Utah Opera provides support by offering various enrichment classes, as well as specialists in the different arts who are available to work individually with the schools.
This year, because of the Imagination Celebration and its link to the Olympics, the schools are given an opportunity to publicly share some of these original operas. Two of the schools that are performing during the Imagination Celebration — Monte Vista Elementary and Edison Elementary — are actually re-mounting their productions that were done last year, said Fowler. "The other two schools, Lincoln Elementary and Rose Park Elementary, will be performing brand-new pieces. . . . It's all during the Imagination Celebration, and we put them at 6:00 so that people could come as a pre-show for an evening event if they would like to. They don't need to have tickets, they can just come."
Lincoln Elementary will present "The Laughing Dolphin" on Wednesday, Feb. 27. Edison Elementary will do its version of "Sleeping Beauty" on Thursday, Feb. 28.
Tuesday, March 5, Rose Park Elementary will present their opera at noon (the only one not at 6 p.m.), and Monte Vista Elementary will present its take on the children's book "Heggety Peg" Wednesday, March 6. All performances will be held at the Black Box Theatre at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center.
E-mail: rcline@desnews.com
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February 24, 2002
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