HGO’s summer opera camp for kids still hitting high notes
Singers can be “super spreaders.” So singing with others will be a no-no for who knows how long.
The effects of the coronavirus pandemic are being acutely felt across the performing arts, but perhaps nowhere more than in the choral-music and opera worlds. Vocalizing together in close quarters might be one of the last normal activities government and public health officials allow to resume — and indeed may not be considered “normal” for some time yet.
Faced with this unsettling new reality, Carleen Graham is startlingly upbeat. The director of HGOco, Houston Grand Opera’s community-outreach arm, admits the past few weeks have been “devastating” for her industry. But over the phone, she sounds resolved to put the best face on the situation she can.
“It’s actually been a very exciting (and) creative time for us,” Graham insists. “In a way it doesn’t wipe the slate clean, but in many ways it allows you to think that perhaps structures that you had in place for years sort of hinder you.
“I feel like we’re pretty energized in some of the ways that we hope to be able to move forward,” she adds.
Targeting teens
One way HGOco, which relishes deflating some of the wearier opera stereotypes, hopes to move forward is with its revised summer opera camp, the all-online Discover
Opera. The company’s camps, which offer up-close instruction in various facets of operatic performance, actually date more than 20 years — well before HGOco’s arrival in 2007.
HGOco had originally planned four camps for this summer. Students would have had the opportunity to, for example, collaborate on an opera based on Tomie di Paolo’s children’s book “Strega Nona”; or perform in the world premiere of “The Impresario of Oz.”
Those plans went out the window once the pandemic took hold. HGOco was well aware its prospective campers would be coming off months of screen-intensive homeschooling and, according to Graham, adjusted its programming accordingly.
“We just didn’t want to throw something together that was just more online time,” she says. “That was just not of interest to us at all.”
Instead, Graham adds, “we really thought about what could we make fun and enjoyable.”
Starting June 16, the Discover Opera camp will meet Tuesdays through Thursdays for three successive weeks. This time it’s for high schoolers only. Although HGOco’s camps usually start with pre-kindergartners, Graham reports that when there was still the idea that the camp might happen in person, adapting pandemic protocols to younger kids proved unworkable.
“You just can’t make 5-year-olds keep a mask on,” she says.
Instead, Discover Opera targets that subset of teens who are passionate about opera — such as the members of the Teen Opera Club, who attend dress rehearsals of every HGO production. These kids are planning to study music in college and beyond, Graham explains — in other words, “that president of the choir at whatever choir they’re in.”
Proper diction
But, she stresses, the goal of Discover Opera will be to underline however great these students’ voices may be, it’s only the first step to becoming a well-rounded artist.
“It’s to get them to understand first and foremost that singers have to really be able to do a lot of things really well,” Graham says. “And it’s not to overwhelm them but to just give them an idea. I think a lot of people think, ‘Oh, if my parents think I’m great, then I must be great.’ ”
Discover Opera’s classes will be separated by at least 15-minute intervals, leaving plenty of time to “juice up their phones,” Graham laughs. Besides singing, subjects include stage movement; acting; opera history and literature, taught by Graham herself; and diction, which Graham says is somewhat overlooked by the public but lies at the heart of opera performance.
Taught by HGO chorusmaster Richard Bado, the diction class will introduce the International Phonetic Alphabet — the standardized system of pronunciation used by linguists, singers and others, first adopted in the 19th century — and go into “not only (how to) pronounce the right syllable but to have a familiarity and an immediacy with it,” Graham says.
“A lot of kids have to take language in high school, but sometimes they don’t have to actually apply it in a way that you would have to do while you sang,” she adds. “Anyone who sings professionally would always say, ‘languages, languages, languages.’ ”
Frequent HGO performer Alicia Gianni will teach the vocal class. The goal, Graham says, is for students to learn a song each week of camp so that by the end they’ll have three additions to their audition repertoire. Graham has also lined up several guest artists, including HGO artistic adviser Ana María Martínez and baritone Dan Belcher (The Met’s “Akhnaten”), to “pop in” with advice and words of encouragement each day.
All of these online classes come with what HGOco calls the explorer level of Discover Opera. Students who choose the navigator level, offered for an additional $200, will get more personalized, in-depth pointers on such topics as smart audition techniques or choosing the right college or conservatory. Assisting will be Melissa Wegner, associate director of the Metropolitan Opera’s National Council Auditions and a former student of Graham’s.
To make Discover Opera a success, “I’m cashing in all of my favors with everyone that I know,” Graham laughs.
“We’re just looking at the blocks of skill sets that can be fun and also give (students) something tangible to take away,” she adds. “That was really important for us.”