![]() It's an incredible experience walking into Lincoln Center's grand opera house, especially when it's decked out for the season with beautiful decorations. My son and I go to the Met's family-friendly holiday opera every year. The Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center, 63rd Street and Columbus Avenues My son was riveted-even from the nosebleed seats! In addition to the Met's holiday offering, which sells out months in advance, there are other smaller, less expensive New York City companies that produce opera for kids all year round. Every year the Metropolitan Opera does a family production during the holidays and we saw Hansel and Gretel. My now eight-year-old son did indeed see his first opera while still in kindergarten. (Let's face it, those are nice perks for grown-ups, too.) At these special familly-friendly opera performances, the length is edited down to accommodate shorter attention spans, the libretto is translated into English, and puppets and audience interaction are added to keep kids interested and engaged. And guess what? In a culture capitol like NYC, of course there are. That's when I started looking around to see if there were any opera companies in New York City mounting productions specifically for children. Although I was impressed that my five-year-old even knew what an opera was, I was hesitant to plunk down big bucks to take him to what I worried would feel like a long, boring concert sung in a language he didn't understand. ![]() "I think you have to really applaud Terence for being the first," he says.When my son was just in kindergarten, he came home from school asking if he could go to an opera. Speaking from his home in Atlanta, Blow notes that you have to look at the significance of the Met production in two ways. "And I started thinking about a lot of the struggles some of my dearest friends who are black gay males have gone through, and what it was like for them to grow, and find their sexuality, and be comfortable in their sexuality."īlow, the real-life subject of Fire Shut Up in My Bones," now works as a staff writer and op-ed columnist for The New York Times. "I tried to think what was my entry point into the work," she says. Brown co-directed and choreographed the show, and is the first Black director to helm a mainstage Met production. Brown (left) leads members of the ensemble of Fire Shut Up in My Bones in a movement workshop.Ĭamille A. ![]() So you always have to fine tune things for the vocalists that you're working with."Ĭo-director and choreographer Camille A. You got it.' This, no: One baritone is so different from the next baritone, one tenor is different from another. When you write for a quintet, you go, 'Okay, I know what the tenor does, I know what the trumpet does, the bass. "It's not like writing for an orchestra, or writing for a band. ![]() "The operatic voice is so unique, each voice," he says. Still, Blanchard says opera presents a unique challenge. There's a jazz quartet embedded into the Met Orchestra for the opera, but much of the music sounds more like Blanchard's work in Hollywood, where he has written the music for more than 40 films. "I'm trying to take American folklore that I know, that I've experienced, which is jazz," he says, "and bring that into the operatic world, but not totally use the entire piece to make a statement about jazz." Rather, he calls it "an opera in Jazz." What he means to do, he explains, is similar to what Stravinsky did in bringing folkloric music into the classical realm. Blanchard is a jazz composer, but he says Fire Shut Up in My Bones is not a jazz opera. ![]()
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