Coached by Experts, a Cast of Children Finds That Opera Can Be Wild

Opera, generally thought of as the entertainment of the evening gown and tuxedo set, is coming to the Bart Simpson and L.A. Gear set.

Under the guidance of professionals from the Los Angeles Music Center Opera, grade-school students throughout the county are learning to slither like alligators, play the drums on trash-can contraptions and sing heartily in the chorus of a children’s opera.

After five weeks of training, they will unveil the opera, “A Muskrat Lullaby,” on their school stage, sharing the spotlight with professional singers.

At a recent dress rehearsal at Grand View Boulevard School in Mar Vista, the children, who play alligators and muskrats, went through the score and blocking--their movements on stage--in preparation for that afternoon’s performance. Location director Paul King ordered the gators to stay low to the ground and act less polite and more “snarly.”

The opera involves about 120 youngsters in the fourth through sixth grades.

Most had no idea what opera was. And if they did have an opinion about opera, teacher Brenda Richards said, it was that it was weird or boring. With the L.A. Music Center Opera team, a school production is not a casual undertaking. They conduct workshops in which the children sing scales, learn creative dramatics and acquire a basic music vocabulary. Llewellyn Crain, manager of the opera’s education and community programs, and opera docents explain opera and teach lines and cues. Composer and librettist Edward Barnes and percussionist John Fitzgerald lead rehearsals and talk about their jobs.

Eight of the children play in a percussion band on instruments they built under Fitzgerald’s guidance. Among the instruments are a drum made of three aluminum cans hanging inside a box, a “zipper guitar” made of a dowel and a metal spring strung between a garbage can and a coffee can, and glass canning jars filled with water and played with pencils that have new erasers.

They are “junk instruments. . .,” Fitzgerald said.

Playing them, however, took practice, the youngsters said. “You have to keep track, look at the teacher. . .”and know the instrument, said aluminum can drummer Jason Clouse, 9.

In addition to the unusual instruments, “Muskrat Lullaby” has elements of Charleston, salsa, rock ‘n’ roll and rap. “The style is . . . accessible and entertaining, more like Sondheim than like Puccini,” Crain said.

“We wanted kids to feel it was real hip, real cool,” she said.

No matter that the children don’t exactly achieve bel canto . “We don’t care how good they sound,” Crain said. “Most important to us is that they understand this process” of creating an opera and they are coaxed “out of their shells or their everyday world.”

So it helps that “Muskrat Lullaby,” based on the book “Mama Don’t Allow” by Thacher Hurd, is set in a swamp. The plot is simple: A singing group consisting of Miles the Muskrat and three other animals (played by members of L.A. Opera’s resident company) goes to the swamp to practice. They are nearly eaten by a gang of alligators, but they sing themselves to safety by crooning a lullaby and putting the gators to sleep.

The “Muskrat Lullaby” program, started in March, is the brainchild of general director Peter Hemmings, who ran a similar project when he led Scottish Opera. The program is financed by government agencies and private foundations and costs about $2,300 per school, with the school chipping in $800. By the end of this month, “Muskrat Lullaby” will have traveled to 29 schools in the county.

The opera company is developing a similar program for junior high and high schools, Crain said.

On performance day at Grand View, 11 people from the opera company took part, including the singers and technical crew. They brought costumes, a few props, conga drums, slide whistles and other instruments. The big star, from the children’s standpoint, was bass-baritone Richard Bernstein, who played the role of the alligator boss, dressed in top hat, black coattails with green jewels and metallic green pants.

The student alligators and muskrats seemed dazzled by the show even as they were in it. Accompanying composer Barnes on keyboards and Fitzgerald on drums, the sounds of the children’s percussion band were amazingly melodic.

Barnes said he was delighted at the way the youngsters shed their shyness as the 20-minute performance progressed. “They learn the value of being a ham on stage,” he said.

The audience of about 200 students first whooped and giggled, but soon they were entranced. The alligators popped up out of character occasionally and the band missed a few beats, but they were given a chorus of bravos.