Grade five students at an elementary school in Saskatoon have written, produced and are starring in their own opera.
The musical form was introduced to them by a professional opera singer, Anastasia Winterhalt.
“Their energy was incredible,” Winterhalt said of the experience working with the youngsters. “They’re right at this age where life is changing a lot for them. They’re on this cusp of big changes and you can see it in them and they were impassioned.”
Winterhalt said she was amazed at how the students embraced the music.
“They were impassioned about something that I’m passionate about and that was unbelievable,” she said.
“It was like the best experience ever,” Julia Lukowich, one of the students in the production said. “I love singing and I love dancing.”
Lukowich said the experience brought her classmates closer together as they worked on the show, from script to presentation, over the school year.
“We got to know each other way more than we did at the beginning of the year,” she said.
Performances of their production took place Thursday at Father Robinson School in Saskatoon.
The characters and plot for the show was based on themes familiar to youngsters – video games.
They called their opera Mastering the Game: Four Levels, Four Worlds One Link.
While the students belted out their solos, duets and chorus songs with gusto on Thursday, some of the students said they were apprehensive when the project began.
“At first I thought, ‘Oh dang, it’s singing,’” Aiden Waring said. “Most of the boys in our class weren’t really fond of singing. Then we learned way more about opera and it wasn’t just singing and it’s acting also.”
“At first, I was like, ‘Oh, an opera,’” Madelyn Rawlyk added. “I thought it was all Vikings and high-pitch singing, but once you get into it, its really exciting.”
The project came together when
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