By Andrea Stevenson, Community School of the Arts

Last month, dozens of Community School of the Arts students attended their first opera, thanks to our new Knight Artistic Engagement Fund.  The Fund connects underserved music and art students with outstanding professional music concerts and art exhibitions at no cost to children or their parents. For these elementary and middle school students, their trip to Opera Carolina’s performance of Il Trovatore by Verdi was both exotic and familiar:   The setting and the experience of opera were entirely new, but once the performance began, the emotions, story and music were accessible and enjoyable.

We asked our students to share their thoughts about their first opera, which included:

How did you feel after the performance?

• “Excited and energetic.”
• “Impressed.”
• “Happy.”
• “Great!”
• “Proud.”
• “Excited.”

What did you learn?

• “I learned lots of Italian words and many things about the 15^th century.”
• “I learned that opera singers have great voices, and I also learned that they speak a different language.”
• “I learned that you can use your voice in lots of different ways.”
• “I learned that in Italian, it can take a super long time to say two words.”   (A staff favorite.)

What did you enjoy?

• “The settings and how they expressed their feelings for one another.”
• “The story line.”
• “The orchestra and the story line.”
• “I enjoyed when Leonora was trying not to freak out about dying.”
• A unanimous “yes” from every student who attended the opera.

Would you like to attend more performances like this in the future? We cherish these responses and can think of no better refutation of the myth that opera is only for grown-ups and the affluent. The Knight Artistic Engagement Fund is making hundreds of experiences like this possible for CSA students and their families.   By helping children become comfortable and experienced patrons, the Knight Foundation is building a future generation of arts subscribers and donors.  And it is providing moments of magic for children as they are introduced to the delight of professional, live performances.