High School High Notes

Dressed in an elegant red gown, mingling and chatting backstage, the Calabasas High School sophomore could just as well have been at a school formal last Saturday night.

A few moments later, however, the noisy patter from a packed house inside Forest Lawn’s Hall of Liberty gave way to admiring silence as the teenager floated across the stage with the authority and composure of a seasoned professional.

Soon the young soprano’s voice began to gracefully dance with the strings and horns, commanding the attention of 1,500 listeners, filling the hall with the soaring highs and quivering lows of the aria “Nobles Siegneurs Salut!” from Gounod’s “Les Huguenots.”

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When she was finished, Jessica Tivens acknowledged the applause with a graceful nod of her head. It was hard to believe she is only 16.

And even more surprising to know she has been singing opera for half of her life.

“I love the grandness of it all,” said Tivens, who, after Saturday’s concert with the Burbank Chamber Orchestra, is making her international debut in Iceland this week.

In addition to two concerts there, she is scheduled to do radio and television interviews and meet the country’s president.

After years of singing lessons and competitions, Tivens--an unusually young professional opera singer--has had a handful of performances in the United States over the last few years and debuted with the Burbank orchestra last season.

But it was her winning Dorothy Chandler Pavilion performance at last year’s Spotlight Music Awards--featuring southern California’s best high school musicians, singers and dancers--that convinced her that opera was the career she wanted.

“It was one of those times when time just stops--you feel suspended,” she said. “That’s what really affirmed, ‘Yes, this is what I want to do.’ ”

With father Lynn, a former professional trombone player, and mother Debbi, a college voice major, music seemed to come naturally to young Jessica. She began dance lessons at age 2 and voice training a few years later--even performing a pop song on Ed McMahon’s “Star Search” in 1989 at age 8.

Then, during a visit to her grandparents’ house in Florida, she walked out of the room where her mother was watching “Jake and the Fat Man” on TV and, on a television in another room, stumbled upon “Aida” with Placido Domingo.

“This is what I want to do,” her mother remembers Jessica firmly declaring after she found her motionless before the screen.

“I could not believe what was going on [in the opera],” Jessica said.

“It filled me with something I had never felt before.”

After years of lessons and traveling to perform and to watch performances, the whole family has been engulfed by opera--and they often plan other activities around Jessica’s singing schedule.

“It amazes me what she does--to sit there and see strangers crying when she’s singing, to see her control 3,000 people,” her mother said.

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These days, in addition to schoolwork and extracurricular activities such as dancing and the poetry club, much of Tivens’ time goes toward rehearsals and weekly lessons with a teacher of technique and a music coach, both USC staffers.

Tivens’ well-developed voice is at least partly attributable to the fact that she started studying opera so early, said teacher Judith Natalucci.

“It’s unfortunate there are not that many opportunities in this country for someone that young,” she said.

But in Iceland--a country known for its love of opera--fans flipped when they heard the advertisements with her voice, said Lisa Hanson, the show’s promoter. Two concerts at a 2,000-seat house in Reykjavik easily sold out.

“As soon as people heard her on the radio they were amazed,” she said. “They could not believe a child could sing that way.”