‘Like seeing fireworks for the first time’: Why you should take your kids to the opera

“There’s something incredibly powerful about the unamplified, operatic voice. It pierces, it’s affecting and, when you’re in the room, you really feel it. There’s something uniquely special about it,” he says.

Peter is the composer of Victorian Opera’s newest family-friendly production, The Lyrebird’s Voice. Alongside librettist Jayde Kirchert, he has plunged into the challenge of reimagining this heritage artform for primary-school-aged kids.

His brief? Take pre-existing works and reimagine them as an introduction to opera and classical music for children, while telling a romping, relevant story in 55 minutes.

“We had to create an exciting world of fast-paced storytelling through the medium of the best opera tunes,” he says. “Somehow, we’ve stitched that together to tell a dramatic story about us, about fitting in and using your voice for good.”

‘Like seeing the world in colour’

For parents looking for a way to entertain kids, opera is unlikely to be your first consideration. Opera tends to fly under the radar compared to other theatre shows for kids, despite its potential to profoundly move them.

Opera singing, with its unabashed loudness and drama, has a powerful capacity for expressing extreme human emotion. It gives children a way to navigate their own tsunamis of unfamiliar feelings.

Soprano Alessia Pintabona remembers the first time she heard opera in grade 5 during a school outreach program.

“I was overwhelmed with joy and emotion, and by the sheer spectacle and experience,” she says.

“It was like seeing fireworks for the first time. Like someone had opened a box and unleashed something – I was finally seeing the world in colour.”

Opera, Peter explains, can also encourage empathy, foster ethical and reflective discussions, and inspire creative and collaborative play through storytelling.

This is what The Lyrebird’s Voice aims to do. The story – about a trickster lyrebird cursed to mimic only, never using their own voice – delves into themes of belonging, identity and adolescence.

Peter developed the story based on workshops with six 15-20 year olds from various cultural backgrounds, who reflected on the difficulty of finding their place in Australia.  They picked a lyrebird as the protagonist, because one girl with an immigrant background said she would mimic the way her friends spoke (or “codeswitch”) to try to fit in.

“I haven’t seen this much rigour and investment in children before. People don’t always pull out all the stops for kids’ content,” he says.

“I think art institutions generally pare away from these immersive theatrical experiences for kids because it’s difficult and expensive to do. But Victorian Opera really invests deeply in the quality of the work they bring to children as much as their adult audiences.

“And I thought that was a really inspiring challenge.”

Looney Tunes and Wagner?

The idea of sitting quietly in the dark to watch historic theatre unfold may be off-putting for some young families. But The Lyrebird’s Voice not only conveys an important message, it’s also a barrel of laughs.

“My personal feeling is that sometimes opera storytelling is really slow. Kids have shorter attention spans. I do too – my attention span is shorter than my parents and the next generation is worse than me,” Peter says.

“Our world is becoming more rapid, and we can handle more information. Our capacity for past-paced storytelling is different to the audiences of historic opera works that we still bring out because of their wonderful music.”

His inspiration for The Lyrebird’s Voice was Looney Tunes’ What’s Opera Doc, where Bugs Bunny and Elma Fudd play characters from Wagnerian operas (think Bugs Bunny in a Viking helmet and plats, in drag as Brunnhilde).

“I grew up on that and watched it on loop,” he says, laughing.

“Victorian Opera is doing what Warner Brothers used to do in a live capacity for kids – using full orchestral music to capture the imagination of children through storytelling and emotional connection.”

Peter says his favourite moments of the opera are “farcical and ridiculous in that old-school cartoon way”, whether a pop-style rendition of Habanera from Carmen or throwing cucumbers at a villainous cat.

“As far as I’m aware, I’ve never seen that on stage: using operatic repertoire, mixed in a modern-day form, at the pace of a cartoon with modern circumstances.”

The Lyrebird’s Voice is also part of our education-focused Access All Areas program. Register your school now to take part and see this unique work.

Anthea Batsakis, Content Editor