25 years of glorious opera at Buchanan Park elementary school
Dawn Martens and her grade school students prepare for their next production ‘B is for Bard’
Shakespeare and opera — are there two more loathsome words to a 10year-old? Not at Buchanan Park Elementary on Hamilton’s West Mountain.
Opera, in particular, has played a major part in the lives of Buchanan Park families for a quarter of a century.
You’ll find 10-year-olds well-versed in Verdi, arias passed from older brother to younger sister, sometimes from mother to son, and parents scheming to ensure their Grade 6 student has a shot at a starring role.
Costumes, set decoration, timing and projection — simply staying on key. Entrances, exits and finding ways to fit things like hockey, swimming and soccer into the rehearsal schedule.
Welcome to the world of the Buchanan Park Opera Club, the only active opera company in the city of Hamilton.
It’s a world created by the unrelenting passion of teacher Dawn Martens, who is now in the midst of final rehearsals for her 25th annual Buchanan Park opera.
Over the years, Martens and her minions — grades 1 to 6 performing with kindergarten students decorating — have brought to the stage Bizet’s “Carmen,” Puccini’s “La Boheme,” Mozart’s “Magic Flute,” and Verdi’s “Aida” (internationally renowned baritone John Fanning played an elephant).
This year, they’re taking on an original production called “B is for Bard,” an amalgamated effort from the pens of Martens, her longtime co-director Graeme Newbigging, William Shakespeare and a bunch of dead composers with names like Giuseppe Verdi and Cole Porter.
Showtime is coming up fast — May 2 and May 3, at 9:45 a.m. and 7 p.m., and on May 4 at 1:30 p.m. There’s a $5 admission charge (call 905-387-5212) with proceeds going to Chedoke-McMaster Hospital’s children’s music therapy program. All together, the operas have raised more than $76,000 for charity, mostly for children’s cancer research.
Martens and Newbigging started on the “B is for Bard” script in November. Auditions began in December and, during the past couple of weeks, things have heated up to a furious pace.
About 30 children of various size and age are in the cast and it’s obvious they love everything about the show, frilly dresses, fake beards, fencing foils and face paint. They even like Shakespeare.
“I’ve always known the tale of Romeo and Juliet,” says Charlotte McElroy, dressed for her lead role as Juliet. “I’ve seen the movie.”
You might think Charlotte, a 10year-old Grade 5 student, got the part out of nepotism (her mother, Andrea, is a teacher at Buchanan Park). But that wouldn’t be true.
Charlotte’s delivery of Juliet’s famous ‘wherefore art thou’ soliloquy is exquisite. She gets it — the warring families and the rose that smells so sweet no matter what its name.
Acting is a new and wonderful experience for Charlotte, who uses a wheelchair due to a birth defect.
She beams when asked how it feels to be onstage — “It feels like nothing can stop you.”
Wilson Tansley-Cryer has the key role of Shakespeare. At 11, the Grade 6 student is a veteran of three operas. Behind the fake whiskers is a true ham.
“I love singing and acting,” he boldly declares, adding that his mother got him some private singing lessons to help him bone up for the part.
Meanwhile, Hamlet is onstage running through his “to be or not to be ...” He’s having a tough time with some of the lines, but Newbigging is confident he’ll pull through.
Newbigging is a retired high school English teacher who turns 80 in June. He lives two blocks away from the school. Six of his grandchildren have been in Buchanan Park operas.
Newbigging knows the Shakespeare canon well. The key, he says, is to make sure the young actors recite the words slowly.
“I’ve got to tell you something about that kid,” he says, leaning in and nodding toward young Hamlet (11-yearold Zach Wardell). “He’s a hell of a hockey player. It just goes to show, we have to be multidimensional.”
Ten-year-old Faith Saccomano shuffles over wearing a shimmering floor-length purple and gold dress with an Elizabethan ruff around her neck. She announces that she is playing the role of Nanette (or Nanetta).
“She is from an opera called ‘Falstaff’ and a drinker falls in love with her,” Faith states succinctly.
Martens came upon the idea of elementary school opera accidentally. Back in 1995, she took a class on a field trip to an Opera Hamilton dress rehearsal of “La Boheme.”
The kids loved it so much they actually asked Martens if they could stage their own version. So they did. And they did it again the next year, and the next. Somewhere along the line it became a school tradition.
So now it’s 25 ... and counting. How many more?
“That’s a good question,” says Marten during a break from rehearsal. “I don’t know because I never thought that I’d be here for 25 years. For now we just keep on trucking.”