‘Home’ Brings Opera to MTV Generation

Hip-hop, rap, rock and now . . . opera? Los Angeles Music Center Opera hopes to turn on members of the MTV generation with its new production of “A Place to Call Home,” a work by composer Edward Barnes based on the real experiences of young immigrants in Los Angeles. It opens Friday at the outdoor John Anson Ford Theatre in Hollywood.

“I think there’s a perception that opera is a sort of phony and elitist kind of art, a museum kind of art,” Barnes said. “This is a piece about people alive now, living now in this city and it’s done in a very contemporary way.”

Barnes’ research included talks with “mostly college-age political refugees” at the Central American Refugee Center downtown.

“Most of the show is based on what happened after they arrived here: what it was like to cross the border, to be put into a foster home, to go to school for the first time and not understand a word of English, peer pressure. . . . As the show goes on, the focus turns to the choices and changes that these people have to make in their lives in order to survive here.”

The new opera evolved out of a version that toured area high schools earlier this year. It was originally a 40-minute work performed by professionals and untrained students from each school.

Barnes lengthened “A Place to Call Home” and revised it to accommodate resident opera artists Wonjung Kimm, Stephanie Vlahos, Greg Fedderly and Richard Bernstein and an ensemble of students recruited from the Los Angeles County High School of the Arts.

“It’s appropriate for our school,” said Alistair Hunter, assistant principal at the high school, where approximately 450 students receive professional training in theater, music, dance and visual arts, in addition to academics.

“We have students who are refugees from other countries, from Romania, Russia, from all over the world. We are essentially a microcosm of other public schools,” Hunter said.

“The short version (of the opera) was originally written for kids who knew nothing about being in a theater piece,” Barnes said. “Now I’m seeing it come alive a lot more, because I have kids who (can) move around, dance and sing. I don’t think it’ll come across as a chorus of kids plus opera singers. It’s very integrated.”

Llewellyn Crain, manager of L.A. Opera’s education and community programs, sees the production as a “perfect first introduction to opera” for young adults. “It’s only an hour long, it’s very contemporary, the music is very accessible and more like Broadway musical theater than opera, yet it’s sung operatically,” she said.

Crain feels that the production is bringing the art form to an audience “not normally served,” an audience that is “ready to experience opera in a very profound way.”

“They know now what it’s like to be in love, they know what it’s like to prepare to separate from family, to go out into the world and make it on their own. Those are issues that are addressed in opera on very grand scales,” she said.

Writing the work presented a challenge for Barnes, who had to postpone work on a new piece for his experimental music troupe, the Metro Ensemble, and apply for extensions on grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department in order to do the revised version.

“You don’t treat a 17- or 18-year-old like a child,” Barnes said. “I had to write a show that was basically an adult show. And, these are kids who watch television all the time, they’re used to quick changes, dramatic action and pacing that is very rapid, images that come at you quite quickly.

“I also had to keep it accessible stylistically, so that there are tunes and sort of pop rhythms that hold their interest. But I didn’t do that just because that’s who the audience is,” he added. “It’s something I’m interested in and wanted to do as an artist.”

Barnes hopes that “people see something of themselves in this show. It is really about finding one’s identity in the world. Anyone,” he said, “can relate to that.”

“A Place to Call Home,” John Anson Ford Amphitheatre, 2580 Cahuenga Blvd. East, Hollywood Hills, Friday-Oct. 13, 8 p.m., $15 per adult, $5 per student; free tickets available for public school groups of 10 or more. (213) 480-3232, (213) 972-7219 (groups).