Statement of Activities
The mission of Family Opera, Inc. is the production and promotion of opera performances for family audiences with casts consisting of both adults and children. In our opera productions, we encourage participation by multiple family members. We perform under the name of "North Cambridge Family Opera Company (NCFOC)."
Our specific activities include:
- 1-2 NCFOC opera productions per year, with 4-8 full performances of each opera.
- Ad hoc performance of selections from NCFOC opera productions at school assemblies, arts festivals, etc.
- Providing individual vocal, drama, and dance instruction to soloists in NCFOC productions.
- Providing the cast the experience of making studio recordings of NCFOC productions.
- Making video recordings of NCFOC opera productions as mementos for the cast and for grant applications and other promotional purposes.
- Maintenance of a web site (www.familyopera.com) which includes photos, sound clips, and information about past and upcoming NCFOC performances, casts, and directors.
- Preparation of materials to support NCFOC opera productions, including costumes, programs, sets, props, promotional T-shirts, MIDI generated accompaniment and practice CDs.
- Encouraging, advising, and collaborating with other composers, musicians, and librettists interested in creating new family operas and adapting existing works for family opera performances.
- Documentation of our methods and procedures for producing operas, to be used as an evergreen guide for future productions.
- Making our materials, documentation, and original opera compositions available to share with other like organizations interested in performing any operas which NCFOC has previously produced.
What Is Opera?
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. Opera is simply the art of conveying a story though singing, acting and dancing, without any significant spoken dialog or narration. It is the absence of spoken book scenes which distinguishes operas from operettas and musicals, and while it may seem like a minor distinction, it dramatically changes the audience experience. In part, this is because the flow of the music is more continuous, but also because music takes much longer than spoken drama, and so the story unfolds in slow motion, pulling you to the edge of your seat for the duration of the show.
In musicals, the plot mostly unfolds efficiently through the spoken dialog. The songs are generally mere punctuation which can be omitted without loss to the story line, or for that matter, sung out of context without loss to the song. More happens in less time. A musical can be very effective and moving theater, but it is a very different experience from an opera, both to witness and to create.
(cartoon used with permission of
Speed Bump
artist Dave Coverly)
One of our missions at The North Cambridge Family Opera Company is to
perform exclusively operas, rather than musicals or operettas.
Showing children (and their parents) that operas can be exciting,
musically accessible, based on interesting stories, and fun to sing
and listen to will help to remove the stigma which is tied to anything
called an "opera." Once minds have been so opened, they are then free
to explore the enormous wealth of the world's 400 year operatic
legacy, from Monteverdi to Mozart, from Puccini to Previn. Who knows,
maybe they'll even start to like Wagner.
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.
It is surprising how few works meet these criteria. In the popular
repertoire, there's "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" and not
much else. In addition to composing our own works, we are continually
looking for family operas which we can perform, as well as shows which come
close to meeting the family opera criteria which we can adapt.
If you are a composer and have written or would like to write a family
opera, or if you know of a work which meets or very nearly meets the seven
criteria above, we'd love to hear from you. Also, if you would like to
review the products of our research and composition efforts, we are happy to
share anything from our library of family operas.
(see How to contact us.)
The North Cambridge Family Opera Company welcomes community
participation in our productions. We hold auditions prior to casting
to evaluate each participant's vocal and movement abilities, so
that we can provide challenging but realizable singing and dancing
assignments for as many interested participants as we can accommodate.
Our casts and crews consist of both children and adults. We encourage
multiple family members to participate. We also welcome adults
without children, those with children too young to participate, and
empty nesters who would like the experience of performing with
children. If your children want to sing, but we can't convince you to
sing with them, you can be in the crew or help in some other aspect of
the production. However, we discourage parents from treating this as
an after-school activity, dropping their kids off at rehearsal and
just coming to watch the show. This is especially important with
younger children, many of whom can master the music but are not
emotionally ready to be in an opera without close parental supervision
and participation. Of course, no one is too old.
Solo and chorus roles are assigned to both children and adults. Solo
roles for each production are either double cast or triple cast (i.e.,
two or three singers are assigned to each solo role and alternate
performances). This redundancy allows us to forego understudies (a
frustrating and heartless assignment for a child, who must learn the
role, but often never has the chance to perform it). Multiple casting
also provides ample solo opportunities, so that most participants who
are interested in and capable of singing a solo role can be given a
chance to do so. Solo roles of various difficulty are assigned based
on the range, ability and experience of the singer. There are also
opportunities for dance solos, which are assigned based on dance
experience and ability.
All shows include a chorus, which is not multiple cast and sings in
every performance. The chorus provides a vehicle for less advanced
and more bashful singers to participate comfortably, without solo
assignments. Soloists in one cast are encouraged to be in the chorus
when other casts are performing. Everyone sings, and everyone dances.
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.). After painstakingly editing the MIDI until
the orchestration, phrasing, dynamics and tempi are just right, we
then play the sequence using a Kurzweil sampler to produce very nearly
lifelike audio, from which we burn CDs for our rehearsals and
performances.
This approach has both advantages and disadvantages. The biggest
disadvantage is that the singers must follow the "orchestra", rather
than the other way around, so some spontaneity is lost. Also, as
impressive as computers and software are these days, it is never
possible to make a computer-generated orchestra sound quite as good as
real professional players.
However, we believe that for an amateur, community-based group like
ours, the disadvantages of computer-generated instrumental
accompaniments are outweighed by the advantages, which include:
Flexibility - you can perform anywhere you can bring a CD player.
Simplicity - scheduling rehearsals for the singers is chaotic
enough without having to worry about an orchestra or a rehearsal
pianist.
Cost - professional instrumentalists add significantly to the
cost of an operating production, and you can save on hall rental if
you are not restricted to venues with a pit for the orchestra.
Versatility - in a single show, the cast can have the
opportunity to perform against a wide range of accompaniment styles
and orchestrations, ranging from jazz ensemble to rock band to
symphony orchestra.
Reliability - a computer-generated orchestra never rushes,
drags, or makes mistakes.
Sound Quality - it may not be the Boston Symphony, but a
computer-generated orchestra will sound better than any live
instrumentalists a group like ours actually will be able to find or
afford.
Adaptability - by editing the MIDI, each number can be easily
played in any key, at any tempo, and with any expression to
accommodate the interpretation and vocal range of each individual
performer.
Reproducibility - the computer-generated accompaniment is
always the same, always just the way the composer envisioned it.
Singers always know exactly what to expect from the invariant
accompaniment (having rehearsed with it), and so do not find following
a CD in performance to be difficult.
Transportability - once we've made an accompaniment CD for our
production, little effort is required to adapt it for use by other
small opera companies.
The vocal techniques which 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.
Alas, not everyone who would like to sing can generate more volume
than an orchestra, and this is especially true with children.
Children are often encouraged to sing louder by `belting' notes
at the upper reaches of their chest voice, a practice which can result
in damage to the vocal cords by young adulthood ("Annie Syndrome").
Fortunately, microphones have become so versatile and discreet that
they can be used in almost any stage application without interfering
with the performance. Traditional techniques for generating volume
are no longer required. Now it is the beauty of the singing which
needs be the primary concern.
The North Cambridge Family Opera Company uses tiny wireless clip-on
microphones to amplify all soloists, so that singers can concentrate
on making a beautiful sound and let the engineer worry about the
volume. Children are instructed to let their voices float upward into
their natural head voices on high notes, thus encouraging good vocal
habits and protecting their voices from damage.
Many of us who were trained in classical music as children can recall
being left with the impression that God had granted the ability to
create great music only to 18th and 19th century Europeans (once we
reached college, of course, the list was expanded to include the
current faculty as well).
What rubbish! Every culture and every era has produced music of great
expressiveness and beauty. We do our children (and ourselves) a great
disservice if we instill in them a narrow musical perspective.
One mission of The North Cambridge Family Opera Company is to expose
children and their parents to musical styles from many cultures and
eras, and to present each of these styles with equal deference and
respect. We teach that no musical style is inherently `better'
than any other.
Our only criterion is that the music be accessible to children, yet
sophisticated enough to hold the interest of adults as well.
"Accessible to children" generally means lyrical and tonal,
but it does not mean simplistic or condescending. Children's
appreciation of music can extend far beyond Raffi if we give them the
chance.
Our operas so far have drawn from baroque, classical, romantic, and
20th century classical traditions, from Middle Eastern modalities, and
from jazz, blues, rock, honky-tonk, ragtime, and pop styles. We've
done tarantellas, sea shanties, marches, minuets, ballads, Londonderry
airs, tangos, even lounge music. And we've only just begun to
scratch the surface of the panoply of the world's musical
diversity.
When Is an Opera a "Family" Opera?
Who Can Be in Our Productions
Computer-Generated Instrumental Accompaniment
Why We Use Microphones
Musical Styles