About Us
Every culture and every era has produced music of great expressiveness and beauty. We do our children (and ourselves) a great disservice if we adopt a narrow musical perspective. The North Cambridge Family Opera looks for opportunities to expose its participants and audience to musical styles from various cultures and eras, and to present each of these styles with equal deference and respect. We treat no musical style as inherently “better” than any other. Our only criterion is that the music be accessible and appealing to both children and adults.
The vocal techniques that are traditionally employed both in opera and in Broadway musicals evolved out of the necessity to be heard over an orchestra in a large hall. Many years ago, only those who could sing loud enough might become successful. Those who could also sing beautifully might become famous.
The North Cambridge Family Opera Company uses computers and electronic instruments (synthesizers and samplers) to create instrumental accompaniments for our operas. Samplers can be programmed to sound remarkably like the acoustic instruments for which the operas are scored. We write the instrumental score as a MIDI sequence, a list of commands from a computer which instruct a synthesizer or sampler exactly when and how to play each note (pitch, duration, volume, timbre, vibrato, etc.).
Anyone 7 or older can participate in our family operas, from children to adults, inexperienced to classically trained. Anyone 5 or older can participate in our science oratorios. There is no maximum age.
A "family opera" is written to be performed for an audience of adults and children, by a cast of adults and children whose talents and experience vary widely. The ideal family opera meets the following seven criteria.
Many people, when they hear the word "opera," immediately think of overweight singers in Viking costumes belting out arias in German. With such a Wagnerian prototype, many see themselves as turned off to operas because they believe them all to be long, pretentious, based on uninteresting stories, and sung in a foreign language by people with loud voices and too much vibrato. Some operas are all these things, but an opera need not be any of them. Jesus Christ, Superstar and Les Miserables are also operas.
Family Opera, Inc. was incorporated in 2001 as a 501(c)(3) non-profit, with a mission of producing and promoting opera performances for family audiences with intergenerational casts. We perform under the name of "North Cambridge Family Opera (NCFO)." Our specific activities include:
The North Cambridge Family Opera Company began as an informal group of children and adults who gathered to perform at the NoCa (North Cambridge) all arts open studios weekend in May 1999. We found the experience of singing opera to be a unique way to strengthen families, to build friendships, and to enhance relationships between generations.
Our mission is to provide children and adults the opportunity to experience and enjoy telling stories through song, by performing operas and oratorios that are
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