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Lloyd hosts Opera Is Fun for student assembly
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Neighbors | Grace Wyler .Students at Lloyd Elementary School participate in an interactive, improvisational opera performance courtesy of Opera Western Reserve.
By GRACE WYLER
gwyler@vindy.com
If their riotous laughter was any indication, Lloyd Elementary School students learned that opera is, in fact, fun, at an outreach program led by young performers from Opera Western Reserve on Jan. 22.
Students gathered in their auditorium to hear the powerful voices of Robert Pierce, Marcel Miller and Max Pivic as they led an interactive opera assembly, titled Opera Is Fun.
The young audience roared and applauded as performers led an improvisational performance, taking on roles and situations chosen by the students, including a man who had eaten an astronaut.
Pierce, Miller and Pivic, accompanied by Ben Malkevitch on the piano, also performed short excerpts from a number of different works as they taught Lloyd students about the languages, emotions and musical components of opera. All four musicians are students who perform with Opera Western Reserve’s Young Artists Program.
The assembly ended with a question-and-answer session, where performers fielded questions about the history of opera and their involvement in the musical medium.
“There is something special about the way that music moves people,” Pivic said. “That’s why I like opera.”
The outreach program for schools is educational, entertaining and involving for the students, said David Vosburgh, the general manager and production director at Opera Western Reserve.
“Opera can be fun. Its not something to be afraid of,” Vosburgh said. “ Its really just another branch of musical theater.”
The educational outreach is an important part of Opera Western Reserve, he added, and has grown throughout the company’s six-year existence. The Opera hosted more than 40 educational assemblies in 2009.
“Opera is something that a lot of kids don’t have a lot of exposure to at a young age,” said Pierce. “We want to introduce them to the idea that there are lots of different types of music.”
The performers also emphasized the importance of introducing young students to cultural arts, particularly because many schools no longer have music or arts programs.
“We want to bring music back into schools,” said Miller. “Just to show them that there is more to music than Beyonce, Usher and Lady Gaga.”
In addition to leading the educational outreach, Opera Western Reserve’s Young Artists program also participates in the company’s annual performance in the fall, as understudies or in the chorus, Vosburgh said. The majority of the young performers are students at the Dana School of Music at Youngstown State University and the Cleveland Institute of Music.
The Young Artists program, which runs year-round, also puts on a one-hour narrated version of the annual production for school children in the Youngstown area.