Opera Class Is Youths’ Play Aria

So kids don’t like serious music? Tell that to Opera Pacific.

As part of its renewed outreach and education effort, the Santa Ana-based company in June 1999 staged Hans Krasa’s children’s opera “Brundibar,” originally staged in 1943 at Terezin, a Nazi concentration camp in Czechoslovakia.

That experience inspired Opera Pacific to follow up its success with a new summer training program.

“There was a real hunger and a need for training and also for performance experience in classical singing,” said Maria Simeone, Opera Pacific’s education programs manager.

“We wanted to expand on that experience and also give them the mentoring aspect of being with older kids. We had very young kids, 8- and 9-year-olds, who already knew they love opera and love singing,” she said.

So Orange County’s only professional opera troupe founded the area’s first summer camp for opera singers and technicians, which runs Friday through Aug. 6 at Huntington Beach High School.

“Opera Pacific up to this point really didn’t have . . . a program that spanned the wide age group, 9 to 16, like we have in the camp,” Simeone said.

The camp will culminate in a production of John Rutter’s children’s opera “The Piper of Hamelin” Aug. 6 at the high school. This production will be open to the public.

Children will attend classes five days a week from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. On Fridays, master classes will focus on specific topics, such as how to audition.

Basically the camp has two components--one for singers and one for behind-the-scenes technicians, who build sets and design costumes.

The 28 children in the singers camp will receive instruction in vocal basics, opera history, and movement and acting improvisation, which they will apply to their performances in the Rutter opera.

The 13 students in the technicians camp will receive experience preparing the set and costumes for “The Piper.”

“We have wanted it to be very much a ‘school-to-work’ kind of thing,” Simeone said.

Older children will serve as role models as well as mentors for the younger ones.

“They’ll teach them about teamwork, perseverance, discipline, follow-through,” Simeone said.

Opera Pacific is offering the camp in collaboration with the Academy of Performing Arts, a magnet school on the campus of Huntington Beach High School. Enrollment there is open to anyone, including out-of-state students.

“They have kids from Texas and other parts of the country who have applied and been accepted and have moved out here,” said Simeone.

Joe Patte, the academy’s technical director, is also the technical director for the summer camp. Diane Coldwell, artistic director of the academy, has provided access to its classrooms and technical facilities.

“We’re using them free of charge,” Simeone said.

The camp’s 12 instructors also include Henri Venanzi, chorus master for Opera Pacific; Roberta Kay, director of programming for KOCE; Sarah Krieger, a local voice teacher, and Christine Jordan, who will give a master class in costuming and also design the costumes for the show.

More than 50 children auditioned.

“We’re treating them as if they were hired to do an opera,” Simeone said. “They get the music ahead of time, learn it ahead of time and come to the first class meeting ready to go. This is different from musical theater.”

The performers also need “some charisma” and “a positive attitude,” she said.

“I hate to use the term, but they had to be a team player. We did exclude some kids based on that. They were talented but already becoming little divas.”

Eleven of the 13 students in the technician camp come from Heninger Elementary School in Santa Ana. Their tuition--$375 per student--is being paid by Opera Pacific.

“They’re the only group getting full scholarships,” Simeone said. “Five other students are being sponsored partially by donors. Opera Pacific is truly reaching into the community in a way we haven’t done before.”

Rutter’s “Piper,” with a libretto by Jeremy James Taylor, lasts about an hour.

“It’s very true to the Browning poem,” Simeone said. “We reduced it from over 40 characters to 28. The beauty of it is that there are lots of small parts. Pretty much everyone gets a line and has a character they have to work on and develop.

“It’s sophisticated music, but also very good for young voices.”

It’s also a story with a grim outcome.

“The Piper does lead the children to their death,” she said. “The lame boy is left behind. There’s a commentary about the extermination of rats because no one likes them. The lame boy says, ‘Am I going to be done away with because people don’t like me and I’m not desirable?’ So there’s that message, too. It’s not a Disney-ish version at all. But it’s also funny. Rutter wrote very clever lines.”

Opera Pacific is also looking to the future.

“The plan is that we do this every summer,” Simeone said. “Whether we can sponsor the tech camp again is something we need to work out. But the intention is to have something every year.”

* John Rutter’s “The Piper of Hamelin” will be sung and staged by students of Opera Pacific’s summer opera and tech camp Aug. 6, 4 p.m. in the auditorium at Huntington Beach High School, 1905 Main St. In advance: $5, children; $8, adults. At the door: $10 for everyone. (800) 346-7372.

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Chris Pasles can be reached at (714) 966-5602 or by e-mail at chris.pasles@latimes.com.