Wrenshall news: Students find magic in a traveling opera

Jules Massenet’s “Cendrillon” or, as we now know it, “Cinderella,” first debuted at the National Theater of the Opéra Comique in Paris in 1899. On Monday, it was performed in the Wrenshall School commons for a raucous crowd of grade-schoolers by Little Opera of the North, presented by Lyric Opera of the North’s Little Loon program.

“This was totally different from the movie,” exclaimed one awestruck student after the performance. “There was real magic … and the prince actually sang in this one.”

The Little Opera of the North is in its fifth season, and this is the fourth year it has brought its unique brand of opera outreach to Wrenshall School. In simple terms, an opera is a play that is sung, but producing an opera, even one in a grade school, is anything but simple. The program entails four professional singers, one pianist, and a complete set with two backdrops, costumes and props. The cast is also the crew, and arrives at the school the morning of the performance, creates the stage, and rehearses with 16 selected students that make up the chorus for the production. In under two hours, the proverbial curtains part and the opera begins.

I was able to attend the show as a guest, and nervously brought along my 2-year-old. He was transfixed, along with over 200 other kids, for an hour of melodious splendor. The students also laughed uproariously at the surprising humor contained in the production, and were especially appreciative of music teacher Tim Rahkola’s rendition of one of the evil stepsisters.

It takes a lot to perform three times a day for an audience that didn’t necessarily voluntarily select to attend; when I asked the cast if they bring anything they learn while doing this work to their other professional performances, they all agreed that the instant feedback students provide helps them become better performers. “You just engage at such a direct level,” said soprano Siena Forest; mezzo-soprano Sadie Cheslak agreed, “They are just right there with you and you learn how to connect with your audience, because you are going to lose them pretty quickly otherwise.”

Wrenshall was this year’s Little Loon debut, and over the course of this week and another two weeks in February, the company will visit more than 30 schools.

As for why they perform opera in schools, the cast echoed a similar response — exposure. “You don’t usually see opera on TV or YouTube, so for a lot of kids, this is the first time they are hearing this kind of music,” explained Forest. All of the members of the cast have training in music education, and the production’s tenor, Wesley Frye, explained that opera outreach is vital to keeping the tradition alive and thriving. “Kids are so impressionable, and while they might not think they are remembering this production or this music, they are going to hear something 10 years later and think back on that performance of “Cinderella” they saw at Wrenshall School, and smile.”

If you have a Wrenshall-specific story you would like to share, you can reach me at [email protected] or 218-310-4703.