Welcome to the Utah Festival Opera Company's 2008 season Opera by Children Family Information page
We are providing this service to better acquaint parents and their children with the works selected for the Utah Festival Opera Company's 2008 season, to help families make decisions about the productions they wish to see and increase the understanding and enjoyment level for all who attend.
The season program you receive as you enter the theatre always provides a brief synopsis of the operas and musicals, but if you rely on that convenience you have cheated yourself of valuable time for pre-preparation.
Opera and musical theater are magnificent art forms. They take everyday or extraordinary struggles and study them, investigate them and ultimately, in every opera or musical selected by Utah Festival Opera, they end in a life lesson learned, a moral, with justifiable consequences levied according to characters' choice and circumstance. Parents should always attend performances with their children not only because of subject content but also because greater enjoyment of the experience comes as parents and children discuss performances for their educational and artistic value.
The four works presented during the 2008 season are no exceptions. The two musicals for the season are: Sherman Edward's 1776, and Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods. Both musicals are sung in English with English *super titles. The two grand opera's are: Giuseppe Verdi's Aida, and Giacomo Puccini's Manon Lescaut. The operas are performed in the language they were originally created, Italian, with English super titles. (*Super titles are the words sung by the performers projected onto a small screen above the stage).
When an opera is performed in its original language it keeps the integrity of the piece intact, especially the poetic and musical elements. Knowing and understanding the story in your own language helps increase your enjoyment of the work. Stories in musical theatre and opera rely heavily on music to tell the story. The music is certainly enjoyed even without understanding the words. The music is thrilling in and of itself! Grand opera and musical theatre have provided much popular music since its origin. However, foreknowledge of the story and a guided viewing by a trusted adult helps the child in the audience understand the action as well as the choice and accountability of each character.
We strongly recommend that you read the production descriptions. Talk about the stories and have fun thinking about which ones will be best for you and your family to attend. Prepare your child for moral situations that will arise: honesty, devotion, loyalty, life and death decisions, and moral choices. Let them know how you feel the characters' choices match up with your family values. Many wonderful family discussions have occurred before and after viewing productions which strengthen moral and ethical behavior through evaluating the situations artistically presented. It is a safe environment in which to be introduced to the virtues of life by experiencing, by proxy, good and bad; find deeper insight into human nature and sacrifices or trials others have in actuality, or in theory, experienced.
A prominent governor in the history of Utah, Brigham Young, made it a priority that one of the first structures to be built in Utah was a theatre. He believed that "upon the stage of the theatre can be represented in character, evil and its consequences, good and its happy results and rewards, the weakness and follies of man, the magnanimity of truth. The stage can be made to aid the pulpit in the impressing upon the minds of a community an enlightened sense of a virtuous life, also a proper horror of the enormity of sin and a just dread of its consequences. . . can be revealed and how to shun it." (Discourses of Brigham Young, sel. John A. Widtsoe, Salt Lake City: Desert Book, 1941, p. 243).
It is our hope that you will leave the theatre a changed person, in a positive way. We believe that this is most likely to be achieved with younger audience members when they receive prior knowledge which allows greater understanding of the performance and the ability to evaluate the experience afterward.
Please note on each production page the Educational and Artistic Value comments, the Family Information, and the Story synopsis for each production. We hope that you find these tools helpful as you make selections for attendance, and as always, have a grand night at the opera!!!
Read detailed family information reviews of teh following operas:
For a complete calendar of performances click here.
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