{"id":6431,"date":"2013-03-06T09:00:48","date_gmt":"2013-03-06T17:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=6431"},"modified":"2013-03-05T13:02:27","modified_gmt":"2013-03-05T21:02:27","slug":"belfry-presentation-lets-audiences-become-the-opera","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2013\/03\/06\/belfry-presentation-lets-audiences-become-the-opera\/","title":{"rendered":"Belfry presents Let’s Make an Opera<\/em> to Victoria theatre audiences"},"content":{"rendered":"

Most people have never thought about being in an opera. Now, everyone walking through the Belfry\u2019s doors can have a chance to do just that.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Giuseppe Pietraroia is conducting an opera… or an audience. Same thing (photo provided).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Let\u2019s Make An Opera & The Little Sweep <\/i>is a unique piece by Benjamin Britten, a main player in 20th<\/sup>-century British classical music. It\u2019s a play about the making of an opera in which the audience participates by taking an active role as the chorus.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first half of the show is the discussion of how to make an opera,\u201d says Giuseppe Pietraroia, a conductor and chorus master at Pacific Opera Victoria. \u201cThe characters rehearse it, and then the audience sees a little bit of the rehearsal process, how the composer writes music, and how the singer learns it.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the show, as a character of the play, the conductor comes out and teaches the audience the chorus of the opera. It\u2019s a very inventive way to get the audience involved in the show.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an unusual work,\u201d says Pietraroia, \u201cin that it is a combination of both a straight play and an opera. An old lady, Miss Baggott, tells the story about a little sweep who is sent off to work because his injured father gets stuck in a chimney.\u201d<\/p>\n

Luckily, the children who live in the house find him and rescue him. They don\u2019t want to give him back to the mean sweeps. They clean and feed him. It\u2019s a beautiful story because children save another child. It\u2019s also beautiful because of the opera and the funny storyline.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of the melodies are very charming and fun,\u201d says Pietraroia. \u201cThe opera has a lot of fun writing. One of my personal favourites, one that I haven\u2019t been able to hear yet because I haven\u2019t had an audience, is one of the audience songs where the audience imitates birds. The melody has been going through my head. I\u2019m looking forward to the audience\u2019s participation. It\u2019s just very beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n

The audience will not only be able to see backstage at the opera but they will also learn gorgeous songs and be a part of the performance. Britten, the play\u2019s composer, liked the sense of community the show fostered; he wrote a number of works about and involving community.<\/p>\n

\u201cCommunity players come and the audience sings, and the young children act in the play. Put them together and the audience is into it,\u201d says Pietraroia.<\/p>\n

\u201cBritten had a real knack for making opera accessible for people who are not opera aficionados,\u201d he concludes. \u201cOnce you hear it, something draws you to the melodies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s Make An Opera & The Little Sweep
\n<\/i>Until March 10
\nBelfry Theatre
\nbelfry.bc.ca<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Most people have never thought about being in an opera. Now, everyone walking through the Belfry\u2019s doors can have a chance to do just that. Let\u2019s Make An Opera & The Little Sweep is a unique piece by Benjamin Britten, a main player in 20th-century British classical music. It\u2019s a play about the making of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6432,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,97],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-march-6-2013"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6431"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6431\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6435,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6431\/revisions\/6435"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}