Once Upon a Time, There Was Opera for Schools . . . : Education: The San Diego Opera cultivates elementary pupils with a puppet show.

If asked to describe the typical San Diego Opera patron, an observer might reply, “Grandparent.” A cynic would retort, “Great-grandparent.”

Neither would be too far off. It is a decidely older crowd that supports opera here. The company, however, knows it needs to reach a younger audience and is assiduously cultivating the opposite end of the age spectrum.

San Diego Opera recently inaugurated its latest educational program, a puppet production titled “The Dragon Who Stole Opera.” Designed to be presented in schools for kindergarten through third-grade students, the show presents operatic snippets and vocabulary in the context of an adventure story.

“We wanted to bring the sounds of opera to grades K-3,” said Education Director Roger Pines, “and puppets seemed to be the

logical way.”

Pines modeled the program after a similar project at Dallas Opera, where he worked before coming to San Diego. But opera and hand puppets have a tradition that goes back to the pioneering television program “Kukla, Fran and Ollie.”

“In the 1960s, PBS did a series of programs with soprano Joan Sutherland and puppets called ‘Who’s Afraid of Opera?’ and Beverly Sills did a special with Jim Henson’s Muppets, which they called ‘Pigoletto’ ” Pines noted.

For San Diego Opera’s script and story idea, the troupe turned to Jack Montgomery, stage director of the company’s resident “Opera for Kids . . . By Kids” program for fourth- to sixth-grade students. Montgomery had written the libretto for “Rip Van Winkle,” which the company introduced last season to local schools.

“Iwanted something operatic and fantastical,” Montgomery said. “I immediately thought of Wagner’s dragon, Fafner, and thought that such a character and voice might be amusing to young children. Then I took Mozart’s two ‘Magic Flute’ characters, Papagena and Papageno, to be a foil to the dragon as villain. I suppose I could extrapolate on the relationship of Wagnerian opera and Mozart, but that’s hardly necessary for the children.”

Though he was intent to make the 30-minute show entertaining and captivating for his young audience, Montgomery had no apologies for its didactic side, learning four opera vocabulary words: aria , libretto , duet and ensemble .

“The one thing I learned from our ‘Rip Van Winkle’ project was to bite the bullet and teach them the proper terms. The students not only understand that they are supposed to be learning vocabulary, but they also feel that they are on the inside track using the proper jargon. It’s all just another way of saying, ‘Don’t talk down to kids.’ That seems to be a lesson we have to keep relearning.”

In Montgomery’s story, the dragon captures four birds, each one representing an operatic voice: soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor and baritone. The live character, Papagena, and her hand puppet, Papageno, engage the children to help free the opera birds by learning their four opera vocabulary words. When the children succeed--a feat guaranteed by helpful cue cards that pop up from behind the stage--the dragon is foiled, and the birds are released.

“When we started this project, I confess that I had a personal prejudice against certain puppet traditions,” Montgomery said. “I disliked the use of marionettes that pretended to sing opera. I had seen such programs when I was a kid, and I found them tedious. I did not want this show to be something precious.”

The large-scaled hand puppets were designed by Lynne Jennings, a local puppeteer who directed “The Dragon Who Stole Opera” and supervised the construction of two identical sets of puppets. Two teams of volunteers, six each, will take the production into local elementary schools on alternate days Monday through Thursday. The program is scheduled to run through April.

“Hand puppets are a kind of magic,” Jennings said. “A kid will focus on a puppet and retain more intently what a puppet says than what a human being will tell him. The children who will see this production are at a certain age where they know the puppet is not real, but somehow the magic still holds. Don’t ask me why; I have no idea.”

All of the dialogue and music, except what Papagena says, has been recorded on tape, and each voice has its special character. Soprano Kellie Evans-O’Connor, director of San Diego’s Discount Comic Opera company, reads the slightly daffy part of Madame Golden Trill, the bird of paradise who represents the soprano voice. Priscilla Allen reads Minnie Mezzo, a swan with a decidely sultry insinuation to her resonant voice.

“I chose local people who had a wry sense of humor to record this project,” Montgomery explained. He chose to read the part of Fafner in a thick German accent.

“I thought the children would get a kick (out) of the didactic, curmudgeonly German professor type.”

Montgomery conceded that he based the accent--which sounds like a takeoff of Col. Klink from TV’s “Hogan’s Heroes” series--on the Germanic founder of San Diego Opera, Walter Herbert.

“I meant it as an homage, of course, since Herbert gave me my start in opera stage design many years ago.”

At the end of Montgomery’s fable, the dragon is destroyed, but it turns into a butterfly that takes off (on a stick) over the set.

“We wanted a nonviolent message in this production,” Montgomery said. “I also believe that art will transform us into something better, so if you want a moral to a story, I suppose that’s it.”