Baltimore Opera Theatre will conduct a student outreach program that will focus on a different Baltimore area school at each performance. 200 students and their parents will receive free tickets to each opera. A free lecture will be provided to students before each performance that will explore the stories of the operas, explain their deeper meanings and talk about the composers. The students will have an opportunity learn how an opera is put together from both artistic and technical standpoints. Baltimore Opera Theatre will also provide lectures for performing arts students that will deal with starting a career in opera as a singer, set designer or technician. Local performing arts school students will have an opportunity to participate in the actual productions by acting as extras onstage, dancing in productions that require dancers and singing roles designated for children. Students will also be given the opportunity to create artwork that will serve as a cover for the opera programs and write program notes that will appear inside a special student section in the programs.
Baltimore Opera Theatre believes in bringing the world of opera alive for students by helping them to understand the value and meaning of this art form and how focus and involvement in the arts is a natural deterrent to violence and self-destructive behaviours.
Being an extra in “The Barber of Seville” was such a positive theatrical experience! I consider myself very fortunate to have been a part of it. Over the past few years, I’ve been interested in opera while studying voice. But to be able to see it from behind the stage was unreal. It was so cool to go in the back stage entrance, get escorted by security, have several costume changes and of course being on stage in a few scenes! It was real interesting to see all the flurry of activity behind stage prior to the start of the show and it was also interesting to see how things seemed to move so smoothly without effort once the show started. The performers were so talented and such an inspiration. The cast was very supportive and kind. They all wished me well in pursuing my talent. This experience was so positive that it has only made my interest and love of opera grow and I hope that I can pursue it one day.
Patricia Rezac
The Barber of Seville had writer Tillman White of Baltimore Gaylife as an extra in the show on November 22, 2009 at The Hippodrome. Here’s what he had to say about his experience.
I was so excited as I got off the light rail to go into the stage door entrance of the Hippodrome. It was my first time inside the historic structure (The Hippodrome Theatre). I was getting a chance after 9 years away from the theater world to be on the stage. Wow! I have been writing for the paper (Baltimore Gay Life) since February 2009 and I happened to be in the office the day Mr. Giorgio Lalov came in to interview with my editor. I found out who he was by simply introducing myself to him, only to discover he was there from The Baltimore Opera Theater Company. He was such a warm and welcoming energetic soul that I had to know more so I began to pick his heart, then his brain. After about two minutes of conversation I asked what can someone my age do to get back into the swing of things within the theater world. Just then my editor pulled him away to begin his interview. I was there in the room and as the interview ended he casually invited me to be an extra, what ding-bat would turn down an opportunity like this one. Excited I said YES! Now thanks to the wonderful and passionate Giorgio Lalov & Jenny Kelly, my passion for the stage has returned. Thanks so much for the opportunity of a lifetime.
Artistically Yours, Tillman E. White
The creation of language was one of the first and greatest artistic achievements, each word originally being a focus of energies in which reality was transformed into the vibrations of the human voice…
