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Opera the Great is great fun

VSO's chamber concert series features kid-friendly interactive primer in full costume

By Stevie Mathieu, Columbian Assistant Metro Editor
Published: March 9, 2015, 12:00am
4 Photos
Tucker Wyatt, 9, of Vancouver plays the father of &quot;the ingenue who steals everyone's heart,&quot; performed by Amy Cole, right, during the Opera the Great show Sunday at Kiggins Theatre in Vancouver.
Tucker Wyatt, 9, of Vancouver plays the father of "the ingenue who steals everyone's heart," performed by Amy Cole, right, during the Opera the Great show Sunday at Kiggins Theatre in Vancouver. OperaQuest Northwest performs at local elementary schools to teach children about the opera. Photo Gallery

Check Them Out

For more information about the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, including upcoming concerts, visit www.vancouversymphony.org

For more information about Opera Quest Northwest, visit www.operaquestnw.org

The Kiggins Theatre auditorium was quiet for a moment. Then, a man in a red opera costume strutted down the center aisle.

“La la la!” the performer, Bruce Kyte, belted out. He took the stage and continued singing.

Check Them Out

For more information about the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, including upcoming concerts, visit <a href="http://www.vancouversymphony.org">www.vancouversymphony.org</a>

For more information about Opera Quest Northwest, visit <a href="http://www.operaquestnw.org">www.operaquestnw.org</a>

“Figaro, Figaro, Figaro,” Kyte sang, counting on his hand the number of times he’d used the name. He stopped, confused. “Line?”

“Figaro!” pianist Kate Hobbie shouted back as children in the front row let out a laugh.

The performance was an introduction to opera for many kids in the audience — and that was the point. In fact, it’s rare for Opera Quest Northwest to perform its interactive Opera the Great show to a more general audience, as it did Sunday at the downtown Vancouver theater.

“What you are about to see usually takes place in the corner of the gym in an elementary school,” Hobbie told the crowd before the show began. The opera group was invited to Kiggins as part of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra’s chamber concert series.

During the performance, the audience of about 85 people — kids and adults alike — were told that opera originated in Italy in the 16th century.

The stories were usually comedies or tragedies, and they often were inspired by fairy tales, folk stories, history or literature.

The children learned that an aria is sung by a performer to show the audience what’s inside the heart or mind of that character. They learned that when performers talk by singing, it’s called recitative, and that many operas have an evil villain, a funny trickster, a heartbreaking woman, her reckless beau, a notorious woman, a wily maid and even a young man played by a woman.

In Opera the Great, the heartbreaker, played by Amy Cole, tries to convince her father that she should be able to marry the man she loves.

Nine-year-old Tucker Wyatt of Vancouver was plucked from the front row to play the dad. He did his best hobble across the stage, wearing a gray wig and mustache and using a cane as a prop. Cole sang passionately to Tucker and then asked if she could marry her love.

“No,” Tucker said. Cole wailed in song.

Throughout the show, more children were pulled on stage or asked to play along from their seats. Toward the end of the performance, Kyte told the crowd that he hoped they leave “with a little opera in your hearts and on your lips.”

After the show, Tucker still had lipstick on his face — from being kissed five times while on stage, he said. He said he thought it was a little weird playing an old man, but “I did a good job.”

His mom, Lori Wyatt, said she thought her son’s performance was “pretty awesome.”

“It was great to see all the kids here and all of them wanting to participate,” she said.

Brass on the Loose

The opera was the second act on Sunday. Performing first was Columbia River Brass, a group of five local brass players. Their show, Brass on the Loose, opened with the main theme from the Mario Bros. video games.

“What an amazing thing that started in the world of video games,” trumpeter Scott Winks said when the piece was done.

The five men kept the show kid-friendly and educational, teaching the crowd about several types of brass instruments, from the bass trombone to the “little baby piccolo,” as Winks called it.

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Columbian Assistant Metro Editor