Children's Opera Performance of Ariel's Tempest

Children's Opera
Performance of
Ariel's Tempest

In conjunction with the Annapolis Opera Company, Peabody Opera Outreach has commissioned an operatic version of Shakespeare's Tempest from composer Douglas Allan Buchanan. Designed for grade-school audiences, the production has been devised by Roger Brunyate, Chair of the Peabody Opera Department, who will also direct the show. The touring production will be available beginning in November, 2011.
 
Ariel's Tempest condenses the story of the Shakespeare play into a 50-minute span. Seven singing actors are involved. Five of these are characters in the play: Prospero, the wronged magician; Ariel and Caliban, creatures of air and earth respectively; and Ferdinand and Miranda, the very young lovers. However, the production is narrated by a modern character: the Stage Manager. She introduces Shakespeare at work on his play, asks him questions between scenes, and joins with him in taking any other bit parts that are going. The spoken comedic text is all new; the sung portions use Shakespeare's original words.
 
The emphasis of the production is on the wonder and magic of this most magical of Shakespeare's plays. We have downplayed the political aspects of the original but emphasized the themes of tolerance, love, and family. The opera will be presented fully costumed, and with simple adaptable sets that can be turned into just about anything in a spirit of make-believe. The accompaniment is for piano and synthesizer, allowing the composer to create sounds that evoke the magic of Shakespeare's play which, being rooted in the masque tradition, itself grows out of music and dance.
 
Although Ariel's Tempest can be presented to audiences without prior preparation, we envision the possibility of further tie-ins. We will send out a teacher's kit that can be used in classes to prepare students for what they are about to see; while we have cut the play considerably, we believe that what we include remains faithful to Shakespeare's intentions. We also invite the participation of children in the production itself. The extent of this depends upon the amount of preparation that is possible. At the very least, we will select some early-comers in the audience to do special physical effects such as making waves. There will be some optional percussion effects that can be played by children, given a few minutes' rehearsal before the show begins. And for those schools who have a choir, we will include a couple of moments where the audience can join in a simple melody to combine with the singing on stage. But all these are optional add-ons to the basic production, which will nonetheless be complete without them.
 

 
ROGER BRUNYATE has been Artistic Director of the Peabody Opera Theatre since 1980. Born in Britain, he has worked at the Glyndebourne Festival, the Edinburgh Festival, the English Opera Group, La Scala Milan, and for opera companies across the United States. Although he is the author of over 20 opera libretti, he has also written for children. For over a decade, Peabody Opera Outreach has been offering Papageno, his adaptation of Mozart's The Magic Flute, in which the entire story is told by its leading comic character (leaving out all the boring bits); Ariel's Tempest is conceived in much the same spirit. His musical play for children, Puss in Boots, recently played for two holiday seasons at Baltimore's Theatre Project.
 
Award-winning composer DOUGLAS ALLAN BUCHANAN was raised in Dallas, Texas where he studied piano, violin, bagpipes, and percussion. He began formal composition study at the College of Wooster, where he also trained as an organist. He currently studies with renowned composer Michael Hersch in the DMA program at the Peabody Institute. He has been commissioned by institutions including the Johns Hopkins University, the University of Baltimore, as well as world-renowned poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko. He serves as adjunct Music Theory Faculty at the Peabody Conservatory and Towson University, and was recently appointed as the Director of Music Ministries at historic Old St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Baltimore. In 2009, Douglas was the recipient of the prestigious Presser Award, enabling him to present his virtuosic piano cycle Colonnades on a national tour including the East Coast, Midwest and Southwest. In 2011 his opera Lux et Tenebrae was premiered by the Figaro Project, receiving praise for being "wonder-filled, expressive, beautiful, and luminous," and "capable of at once uniting spectacle and depth." Most recently, his orchestral work Malleus was read by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and was also chosen as the winning work in the Macht Orchestral Composition Competition, to be premiered in the 2011-2012 season by the Peabody Symphony Orchestra.

For more information, please call 410.267.8135. Season subscriptions go on sale June 1, 2011. Subscribe and save 15% off the season and receive a FREE ticket to the Vocal Competition Recital! (Value $30). Single tickets go on sale August 15, 2011 at the regular price.