FAMILY OUTING
Teens interested in opera have an online place to meet.
At the first-ever meeting of the Teen Opera Club of Texas (TOCT), a new initiative by five major opera organizations across the state, kids ages 13 and older met one another in a “Zoom room social hour.” They were virtually introduced to the event’s guest speakers and got to know one another through musically themed interactive polls.
Then it was time for the watch party.
Leaving Zoom and following a Stream-Yard link, they accessed a private YouTube channel to watch Houston Grand Opera’s recorded performance of “Katie: Strongest of the Strong.”
The event’s commentators were composer Faye Chiao and lead soprano Chabrelle-Williams, who joined the online chat with the youth.
As the show began, the teens interacted with Chiao and Williams in real time, typing questions about the production and getting behind-the-scenes intel.
Carleen Graham, director of HGO’s community engagement and education arm called HGOco, helped moderate the TOCT meeting and says she was pleased how active the kids were in the chat. They unabashedly gushed to the guests about their favorite parts and becoming more lively during “some major vocal moments,” she says.
The enthusiasm continued as teens responded to harmony and virtually cheered on the cast through emojis and acronyms.
Rather than clapping in an auditorium, they were “telling the artist in real time how it was impacting them … what that moment did for them, and it was very powerful,” says Alisa Magallón, HGOco senior education manager.
Each month a different company will lead the online club meetings of TOCT, which is free to join. On Nov. 19, Opera San Antonio will give members insight into the set design and costumes used in its production of “The Cunning Little Vixen.”
Other meetings will explore how operas are created and conducted and will offer tools for teens who are auditioning for college opera programs.
TOTC is open to teens with no musical background.
In Magallón’s experience, children who are first-time operagoers “enthusiastically embrace opera without knowing they never were supposed to,” she says, adding that young audiences cannot help but respond to “this powerful visceral experience of hearing the human voice in its most crafted, polished form.”
HGO’s current season has moved entirely to a virtual setting but, in a typical season, Opera Club allows teens to watch dress rehearsals at theWortham Center and other live performances.
A junior at Kinder High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, Samantha Pape— HGO’s Opera Club ambassador— has attended numerous HGO productions to write critiques as part of her coursework.
It was through HGO’s Bauer Family High School Voice Studio that Pape first discovered her passion for opera, she says.
A choir member and musical theater performer, she attended a mock audition where high school students were performing opera and receiving feedback from professionals.
“These teens that were so close tomy age … they have the most amazing voices that shook the room,” she remembers. “It was this moment of enlightenment for me.”
Through Opera Club and the new TOTC, Pape says she has found friendship with like-minded people who want to pursue music as a career.
The first TOTC meet-up was “intellectually invigorating,” she says, “It was absolutely amazing. (Whenever) I’m watching a performance, I wish I could ask what it felt like to sing that line or how they prepared this role.”