Who’s Afraid of Opera?

No one! At least not after experiencing OLV’s 30-minute introduction to opera’s rich and varied history, an art form that combines music, comedy, drama, dance, instrumental accompaniment, technical theatre arts, and most significantly, unamplified singing.

Who’s Afraid of Opera? is an instructional and entertaining Informance (Information + Performance), that teaches youth about opera, and demystifies how to appreciate the beauty of operatic singing in its many manifestations.

Two young professional singers perform selections from opera, operetta and musical theatre. The Informance is designed to educate students in lyric theatre performance traditions, acquaint them with famous arias and duets, and to make the opera performances accessible, with presentations in a style relevant to modern life.

Since the vast majority of students will be experiencing opera for the first time, a narrator explains the musical journey, which includes songs in English translation, as well as a classic aria in the original Italian “just for fun” - Quando m’en vo (Musetta’s Waltz Song) from Puccini’s masterpiece La Bohème.

Participants also learn about crossover talents, with these trained opera singers performing selections from classically inspired Broadway shows. The concise, fast-paced presentation is followed by a lively Q&A session with the artists, including many astute observations. Our favorite question to date was when one fourth grader asked: “How do you do the yelling?”

OLV “yells it” proudly, that we have reached over 20,000 students since the first schools tour in 2016. Plans for spring 2022, including virtual learning, are currently being coordinated.