Hitting A High Note at Summer Camp

Anne Norland wasn’t sure she liked opera before this summer. It was something unapproachable, for old people, women singing with horned helmets in languages she couldn’t understand. But her experience at the Washington National Opera’s “Opera Summer Camp for Kids” changed her mind.

A ten year old at Haycock Elementary school in Falls Church, Norland auditioned for the opera camp after her teacher recommended that she look into singing opportunities for the summer. Norland auditioned and was chosen as one of 29 students in the Washington, D.C. area to take part in the camp which introduces opera to young people.

For Norland, the fun of performing is what first got her interested. While a skilled singer, she doesn’t consider it to be her primary talent. Instead, she has aspirations of becoming an actor.

But the camp has changed her focus on the type of acting she wants to do. “I was thinking film, but now that I’ve done this camp I’m not so sure,” she said. “I like the butterfly feeling in your stomach right before you go on stage.”

Norland also enjoyed working with the other campers. And over the past month as she has seen her summer fly by she has made new friends and taken part in a variety of classes that included voice lessons, stagecraft, and yoga for singers.

The camp which is celebrating its 10th anniversary premiered the newly commissioned children’s opera The Enchantment of Dreams by the team of composer Cary John Franklin and librettist Michael Patrick Albano.

The piece was commissioned jointly by the Washington National Opera and the Opera Theatre of St. Louis.

The 45 minute opera tells the stories of three kids who struggle to understand their own talents in a world that doesn’t always accept them.

The three kids discover the Noosha stick during a museum tour. The ancient tribal dream stick, when placed under a sleeping person’s pillow allows them to communicate with their ancestors through their dreams.

In each of the dreams the three children come to understand how their talents and identity are gifts passed on to them from their ancestors.

Albano talked to the News-Press about the use of dreams in the opera. “When adults analyze their dreams they think, ‘What does it mean?’ But children think of them in more direct ways,” he said.

For kids, Albano said, dreams become very specific ways of understanding the world around them.

Franklin, who is partnering with Albano for their third children’s opera, described how he tailored the music to the theme of the story.

“I integrated a lot of wooden sounds and African tribal elements that work with the story,” said Franklin.

One of Franklin’s most striking choices is the use of mbira, a small wooden instrument with metal pegs that are plucked with the thumbs. Franklin said that these instruments are used in African culture to call up their ancestors. “It was so obvious in connection to the story that I had to use them,” he said.

The mbira are played on stage by a cast of children. Dressed in colorful costumes the hollow twang of the mbira introduces the dream sequences where the children commune with their ancestors.

Both Albano and Franklin talked about the dynamic of children’s music and children’s performance. “I don’t write simple music for simplicity’s sake. The kids can do challenging musical pieces,” said Franklin. “The technical range of what their voices can do limits things, but if you stay within their physical limitations they can do anything,” he said.

Albano, who along with writing the libretto directed the play, said that the kids bring great energy to the stage. “With kids their performance is a form of play acting. It’s very unintellectualized,” he said. “What we do is try to provide a discipline on top of that, but the last thing you want to do is take away the fun of being out there.”

To see the children enjoy their new stage experiences audiences flocked to the performances. On Saturday and Sunday at the Roundhouse Theater in Bethesda the children performed four consecutive shows to sold-out houses.

For Albano and Franklin it is another success and a promise of good things to come for their follow-up production in St. Louis this fall.

For the young performers it was proof that, although kids, they have the ability to put on a moving performance of a world premiere opera.

And for Norland, it was also the beginning of a whole new world of music. She said her mother recently bought tickets to see the Magic Flute and she can’t wait to attend. “I’m more into this type of music now,” said Norland. “It’s not just a fat lady singing, it’s fun.”