Bay Shore Lyric Opera wants to put a song in kids' hearts

0652 | Wednesday, December 20, 2006

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Bay Shore Lyric Opera wants to put a song in kids' hearts

By Heather Zimmerman

For all its famously beautiful music, the art form of opera labors under some off-putting stereotypes that are hard to shake.

Bay Shore Lyric Opera is aiming to change minds about those ideas, starting with the youngest ones. Saratoga school children will be among the first in the South Bay to experience the company's children's opera version of Hansel and Gretel, Jan. 9, 9 a.m., 11 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. at the McAfee Center, 20300 Herriman Ave., Saratoga.

The company also recently presented Hansel and Gretel at Villa Montalvo in what has become an annual engagement.

Bay Shore Lyric Opera already knows a lot about doing things differently. The company got its start in 1996 when founders Papken, Claire and Jennifer Der Torossian of Saratoga purchased a rundown movie theater in the beach town of Capitola and renovated it into an opera house. In that theater, Bay Shore Lyric Opera presented professional productions of traditional operas, accompanied by a full orchestra.

"We made it happen," Jennifer Der Torossian says of the theater, "It's a little place, but nevertheless, we made a mark." Der Torossian is a professional singer who studied with tenor Salvatore D'Aura, a student of legendary composer Giacomo Puccini. Der Torossian performed in many of Bay Shore's productions and is co-founder of the company's children's programs, along with professional singer and music educator Liliane Cromer.

Eventually, the Capitola theater's 300 seats proved too few to make full-scale productions financially viable, and the company stopped presenting regular seasons of opera productions in 2003. The theater was sold and Bay Shore Lyric Opera left Capitola i n2005.

Cromer, who regularly performed in Bay Shore productions, notes the company had an impact not only on the arts community on the coast, but also on the arts in the Bay Area as well. "It was a great gift to the community," Cromer says of the company's residence in Capitola, "and I think when it moved out, it was a big loss, because it provided the community an outlet not only for the people to go see opera, but also to participate in it. We had a lot of people who sang in the chorus there and loved it and then moved on to Opera San José."

A Bay Shore Lyric Opera production introduced area audiences to soprano Sandra Rubalcava, who was a favorite at Opera San José and has gone on to an international career.

For the past few years, Bay Shore Lyric Opera has focused on its children's programs, which were part of the company almost from the start. The company began presenting children's operas in 1998 in Capitola with a production of Engelbert Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel. The opera was sung in English and was tailored for younger audiences. "The success of that prompted us to continue," Cromer says.

Bay Shore Lyric Opera began to take its children's version of Hansel and Gretel on the road to venues where local schools could bring their students on field trips. For schools unable to arrange to take students off-campus, the company has also developed a program that can be taken straight to individual schools, a hands-on introduction to opera called The Opera Show With Figaro. The company also provides extensive study guides for teachers to use in their classes before attending a performance.

"The foundation of it is the grand operas that we've been putting on at Bay Shore Lyric Opera and I think they just took the professional format of the grand opera and they brought it to the children. It's the same level of quality. And they're just gearing it toward children," Jill Fries, who handles the company's marketing, says of the children's operas. She notes that Der Torossian and Cromer draw not only on their professional knowledge as musicians, which includes Cromer's 20-plus years of teaching, but also on their own experiences as mothers.

That first production of Hansel and Gretel in Capitola in 1998 helped the company establish the model it continues to use for children's operas. Der Torossian and Cromer condense operas into one-hour shows, shortening music and adding dialogue where necessary to keep children's attention. "The scenes are about 15 minutes long. Then we have a new scene and new costumes," Der Torossian says. "The kids are fascinated. They really are on the edge of their seats. We don't lose them." In addition to Hansel and Gretel, they have reworked and performed La Cenerentola, Rossini's take on Cinderella, Gian Carlo Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors and are working on a version of Mozart's The Magic Flute.

Every children's opera production presented by Bay Shore Lyric Opera features children singing in the chorus. These young cast members are primarily from local schools, with a range of elementary-age children to high school students participating in any given production. Before a performance, students rehearse for about six weeks under the tutelage of Der Torossian and Cromer.

Professional singers still perform the principal roles because of the difficulty of the music. Der Torossian and Cromer, for example, sing the roles of Hansel and Gretel. Cromer, who teaches voice at Santa Clara University, often encourages her students there to take on some of the secondary roles in the children's operas because it gives them experience with a professional company.

To recruit its youngest cast members, Bay Shore Lyric Opera sends fliers to area schools, inviting the students to participate, with no tuition charged and no audition required.

This open approach also means that children of all singing abilities participate, which is something Cromer and Der Torossian embrace. "We don't make them all professional opera singers," Cromer says. "We just want to have them become people who take pleasure in singing."

Although the company's founders are Saratoga residents, the Jan. 9 performance of Hansel and Gretel will be the first time the company has presented its children's opera to South Bay schools. Over the years, the program has done well at schools in Santa Cruz County and on the Peninsula, but the absence of an appropriately sized theater that the company could rent affordably in the South Bay was an obstacle until recently. The 2005 opening of the McAfee Center at Saratoga High School made the company founders take another look at the South Bay.

Ultimately, Bay Shore Lyric Opera is hoping to establish a home base in the South Bay, and find long-term corporate sponsorship to subsidize children's opera performances. Sponsorship, Der Torossian and Cromer say, would allow the company to add an orchestra to its performances, or present certain operas that would be well-suited for young audiences but require more bells and whistles, such as a fantasy opera by Ravel, in which the furniture in a child's room comes to life and sings.

"This is what it's all about," Der Torossian says. "It's about bringing fine art to children in an accessible form, so that they can say 'Wow, I really like opera. I didn't know what it was, but now I like it.' "

For more information about Bay Shore Lyric Opera, call 408.391.5785 or visit www.bslopera.com.