Seattle Sun Newspaper - Vol. 8, Issue 5, May 2004

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Third-graders to write, perform original opera

By JAMES BUSH

The quartet of composers are seated around a piano, creating music to fit the words of their new opera.

The room is a portable classroom at Alternative Elementary II and the composers (aside from jazz pianist/composer/arranger Bob Kechley) are third-graders working to complete "The Day They Disappeared," an original opera whose world premiere is set for Friday, May 21 at the public K-5 alternative school in Wedgwood.

This is her third class to write, stage and perform an original opera as their annual "learning expedition," a year-long project which involves the entire class, says teacher Johari "Jo" Voss. Each student is assigned a role in the production company, from composers and writers to stage technicians and public relations people.

Today, student composers Ron Paldi, Ruby Mercado and Jessie Trapp are especially engaged because Erika Roscoe, the public relations person escorting this visiting reporter, is also the performer who plays "Jamie," the character who will sing the aria they are composing.

They also enjoy the words of the aria, in which "Jamie" laments the arrival of a new baby and the changes it has made in her home life. As the opera is still a work-in-progress, the lyrics don't specify whether the attention-stealing younger sibling is male or female.

"Who's more annoying? A baby sister or a baby brother?" asks Paldi.

Roscoe doesn't think long. "A baby brother," she says, making a face.

So, art imitates life and the line: "It wets and burps and whines all day" becomes "He wets and burps and whines all day."

Kechley suggests prettier music for the section where "Jamie" recalls the good days before the baby's arrival, then hits the piano keys harder to get an angrier, more staccato sound to back her litany of complaints about the changes in her life.

He asks the composers if they want to play anything on the piano that he could work with. Mercado plays a chromatic scale and is delighted when Kechley creates a piano flourish incorporating it.

Meanwhile, on the school's stage, Voss is working with the four girls (Clarice Kim, Alex Kunze, Hailey Spencer and Toni Ray) who comprise the opera's writing staff. They've already made good headway on "The Field Trip Song," when Voss switches to working on dialogue. A quick plot synopsis: four rebellious students sneak away from a field trip to downtown Seattle to see the sights and end up missing the bus home. Voss leads the writers through an exchange between the four fugitives as they tour downtown in search of the FAO Schwartz toy store.

Kim suggests that one student should say he remembers the store as being "across the street from Starbucks." Voss lights up and writes down the line. "That's great," she enthuses. "There's so many Starbucks' downtown, they can't tell which one it is."

But there is far more to this project than teaching kids the joy of making "too many Starbucks" jokes. Carpenters must master the use of tools to build sets. Lighting designers study electricity. Performers get lessons in acting and movement and must memorize dialogue. Everyone learns about working together, organizing a project, and meeting deadlines.

The AEII opera experiment began in 1999, when Voss and visual arts teacher Kathy Taggett traveled to Cincinnati to attend a New York Metropolitan Opera Guild Education Department workshop on how to help young people create an original opera. Kechley, whose son was an AEII student, was hired to supervise the composers (he's participated in all three operas).

The first AEII opera, "The Hike," was presented in the spring of 2000 by the Opera Magic company. The following year, a second class at AEII joined in to create The Fantastic World of Opera Production Company and produce "Friends Friends Fabulous Friends." This year's group has chosen to be known as the Melting Music Opera Company.

There is a serious subtext to the work. The characters in "Friends Friends Fabulous Friends" were participating in a debate over the refusal of the United States to ratify a United Nations treaty on the rights of children. This year's production more closely focuses on children's right to a good education (which explains why, in addition to looking for a toy store, the four runaways are discussing the declining quality of the educational system in Kenya).

This concern is partially a holdover from last year's expedition, a comprehensive study of Mayan culture in Mexico which culminated in a service project to raise money to help establish a school library in the village of Xcalak, in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo. This year, students are doing more fundraising, with the aim of financing a small library building and perhaps a computer or two, to allow students from both schools to exchange e-mails. (Voss, who has twice visited the village with her husband, ended up hand delivering last year's batch of pen pal letters.)

"The kids make a very strong connection to the right of all children to have a good education," she says.

The opera's public performance will be preceded by three dress rehearsals attended by other AEII students. The first audience is comprised of the school's youngest students, says Voss. "They don't make our third graders as nervous as they would with older kids watching, so we sort of work our way up."

Which means the public performance is the major test? Not really, says Voss. "I don't know if that's as scary as the fifth graders."

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The Melting Music Opera Company will perform "The Day They Disappeared" on Friday, May 21 at 7:30 p.m. at AEII, 7711 43rd Ave. NE. Suggested donation is $6 adults/$3 children. To reserve a seat, send a check to the school in advance, made out to "AEII Parent Group."