Goldie Locks and the Three Bears

You might not be aware that children love opera: coming to it with no social preconceptions they can judge it on its own merits – and opera is like no other art form. Most regional opera companies have outreach programs which perform in local schools, often borrowing music from classical operas (Mozart’s are favorites) and adapting it to stories like The Three Little Pigs. Despite this, many newly composed children’s operas often have meandering saccharin music deemed by someone to be suitable for children, as if serious music like that of Bach or Beethoven is inappropriate for young ears for some reason, as if young people don’t already talk to each other about serious subjects. Kids have problems of their own just as serious to them as what troubles the grown-ups, and the sooner in life people hear serious music the sooner they’ll understand it, and they’ll become smarter just by listening to it. GOLDIE LOCKS AND THE THREE BEARS is a serious opera for children of all ages.

Plot

The opera’s plot soon departs from the familiar Goldilocks fable to become a story about tolerance for those who are different, and how to deal with one’s peers in a positive way. The porridge is still there (but what’s IN Bear porridge?), as well as Goldie falling asleep in the Bears’ house (what does a Bear’s house look like?); when you see the show you’ll learn how the characters deal with their respective problems, and decide for yourself how well they did. Maybe one of the characters will remind you of yourself or someone you know!

Education

The opera utilizes four of the six main operatic voice types, letting children hear and understand the variety operatic voices can have. (The two types not represented are alto and baritone.) Placing these voice types into the opera, composer Adam C J Klein represents the grown-up bears with the lower voices: the lowest one – Bass – is Papa Bear, and the next-lowest Tenor is Mama Bear. (If casting Mama Bear as a tenor seems surprising, besides the fact that this is a big bear, remember that women singers have often been cast in male roles – Mozart: Cherubino; R. Strauss: Octavian; Verdi: Oskar – and in one of Kurt Weill’s operas the Mother is a bass!) The higher voice types, pitched more like most children’s voices, are featured in the roles of Baby Bear (Soprano, the highest one) and Goldie Locks (Mezzo-soprano, in the middle female range.) In this production we are fortunate to have an actual student, not an adult, in one of these roles!

Parents and teachers have the option to teach or encourage children to study these figures and event which include the following:

Susan B. Anthony, Ludwig van Beethoven, Mary McLeod Bethune, Amelia Earhart, Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, Pericles, Queen Elizabeth – and Brown v. Board of Education. Said figures and event have furry counterparts that are mentioned in the opera.