Toddlers now hit the high notes

– Two-year-old Emily is already on her way to a lifetime love of opera. She particularly likes the hopping.

Welcome to London’s Royal Opera House, where Opera Dots, a workshop for toddlers, aims to build a future fan base, one hop at a time.

Beneath an elegant iron-andglass ceiling, a group of young guests giggle on a play mat as they mimic a costumed performer singing and dancing her way

London

through Hansel and Gretel. Some children do boisterous impressions of a scary witch, luring the pair into her house of sweets.

According to its annual reports, attendance at the Royal Opera House has fallen by 137 000 since 2013. The opera aims to turn the tide by making the art more accessible to young people.

“It was due to the growing evidence around the importance of early years education, so what we want to do as part of the Open Up programme is have a really diverse range of programmes and workshops so that all ages can access the Royal Opera House,” said the opera house’s head of national programmes, Amy McGann.

The course begins with babies as young as three months, and goes up to five years old. Early childhood music specialist Nicola Burke, who helped to create the course, said “it’s about time” opera was opened up to very small fans. – Reuters