1,700 3rd Graders Enjoy Billy Goats Gruff as Opera
Nearly 1,700 DMPS 3rd graders attended a performance of Billy Goats Gruff by Opera Iowa.
The much longer-than-usual yellow caravan lining the curb outside of Central Campus on Wednesday morning was a fleet of buses delivering an eager audience of 3rd graders from across the district to a presentation of Billy Goats Gruff unlike any other.
A total of approximately 1,700 young patrons of the arts were treated to an adaptation performed by OPERA Iowa that contemporized the classic tale into one with clear implications for situations they face every day.
In this version the goats – Lucy, Ernesto, and Dandini – are tra-la-la-ing their way home from school, playing a game of hide and seek. Osmin, the troll that lurks under the bridge they must cross, is a baritone, a buffoon and, most pertinently, a bully. Rules don’t apply to him, he bellows. He can do as he pleases and he aims to “poop your party” (big laugh line).
That’s what he thinks. Cutting to the chase, Lucy stands up to him, knocks him into the swamp and he emerges almost magically cleansed of his mean spirit.
This is all set to an arrangement of compositions by Mozart, Rossini and Donizetti and the timely message is leavened some by pratfalls and other nonsense calculated to give the audience a laugh or two in addition to something to think seriously about on the bus ride back to school.
OPERA Iowa is a troupe of young professionals affiliated with the Des Moines Metro Opera. Over the last 30 years nearly 750,000 young people have been its audience, many of them getting their first exposure to operatic story-telling. One of the most innovative programs of its kind in the country, this regional arts education tour features study guides and curriculum-based education workshops as well as performances designed especially for young students.
Many in the big crowds that flocked to each of two performances in the Central Campus auditorium on Wednesday knew where the story would end. But whatever it lacked in suspense was offset by the fieldtrip to a big venue and the excitement that’s always palpable at showtime!
Forget about the bad spelling displayed in some of the props (BRIJ KLOZD; KINDNES IZ CONTAJUS), the lesson for the day was clearly spelled, and sung, out: “We must be fair and kind and true…to each and every one, no matter who…”
Bravo!
