Those looking for less commitment can attend one of Seattle Opera’s annual open hous events, Frost Fest in February or Summer Fest, to hear opera performed in a casual environment amidst kid-focused activities. Teens can take their singing to the next level with a three-week summer intensive or a musical theater workshop. Elementary school kids can attend camps during school breaks, and weekly chorus classes year-round. There are also plenty of opportunities for families to engage with opera directly. For schools, that includes field trips to dress rehearsals, musical story times in classrooms and classroom residencies, and even a visiting production of a one-hour opera, complete with study guide and post-performance discussion (this year it’s a bilingual performance of Cinderella). First, it has developed an extensive outreach program that reaches 400,000 people each year. Recognizing that a two-hour performance in a foreign language is not necessarily the best introduction to the art form, Seattle Opera has made a special effort to create easier entry points for kids and families. A particular target? The assumption that opera is elitist and irrelevant.
Seattle Opera has leveraged its stellar reputation to take risks that challenge not only artistic assumptions but social ones, as well. Seattle Opera is well aware of the stereotype of a fat woman in a horned helmet singing incomprehensible high notes - after all, the stereotype is inspired by Wagner’s Ring Cycle, the series of operas that secured the company’s worldwide reputation for quality.
That’s a shame, because opera is actually one of the most accessible forms of performance art, combining music and theater with a level of spectacle that matches the Hollywood blockbuster. Photo credit: Philip Newton, Hansel and GretelĮven in our arts-obsessed region, there are plenty of people who think of opera like the minuet - interesting only for its historical importance. To get in the mood for this outrageously bawdy yet elegantly refined opera-about a beautiful Countess who is courted by both a lusty young Count (in many disguises) and his lovesick teenage follower-enjoy these beloved moments from other favorite Rossini comedies.Ashley Emerson (Gretel) wandering in the dark wood. Seattle Opera is ridiculously excited about our first-ever production of “The Wicked Adventures of Count Ory,” Rossini’s final comic masterpiece.
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