Ascension Lutheran School fourth- and fifth-graders are becoming well versed in the art of cheating, but not the kind that results in a trip to the principal's office.
Students in the Kids Create Opera program, a partnership with the Landover Hills school and the Washington National Opera, learned how to cheat—turning at an angle to project your voice—as they wrote and composed their own opera, "Maryland, My Maryland – A Journey of Adventures."
The students, known as the Fifth Dimension Opera Company, performed Tuesday night in the main church sanctuary. The seven-scene opera is about four students who stray from a class field trip and journey through time to witness the founding of Maryland and the building of the state's original capital, St. Mary's City.
More than 20 students spent the entire school year working with Washington National Opera composer Chris Youstra, Ascension Lutheran's music director David Simmons and teachers Ed Salners and Susan Kennedy. Salners encourages the students to write about what they know. Ascension Lutheran students learn Maryland history in the fourth grade and take an annual field trip to Annapolis.
Simmons said at the beginning of each school year, he reminds students the word "opera" is inside the word "cooperation" and creating a successful opera is impossible without teamwork. Students work together on a theme and work with the school and Washington National Opera staff to develop a libretto, an opera's words and lyrics. Past operas have been about summer camp experiences, the Civil War and preserving the environment.
Salners, a fifth-grade teacher, described himself as an "opera buff" who hoped for a chance to expose his students to opera when he arrived at Ascension 10 years ago.
"For me, it's really not about opera or about music," Salners said. "The program is about building self-confidence in the students."
Simmons and Salners did a summer training course through Music! Words! Opera!—which later became Kids Create Opera— in 2000. Since fall of 2000, Ascension Lutheran fifth-graders have put on operas, but this is the first year the school's fourth grade combined with fifth due to low class sizes.
Simmons said the program is a great mix of academics and thinking outside the box. In addition to learning terms such as baritone and soprano and decorating their own backdrops, students learn about poetry and meter to create lyrics and use math to determine the meter and tempo of songs.
Fourth-grader Monique Barnes, 10, of Bowie said the program was a "really cool, fun experience" that required every student's input and forced her to focus. In the opera, Barnes played "Michelle," one of the four students who sneak away from the class.
"I definitely didn't know it was going to be this hard," Barnes said. "You have to go through a lot of rewriting. I think we're on our fifteenth draft."
Students also studied opera history and individual works such as "Madame Butterfly" and "Carmen." The fifth grade saw "Carmen" at the Kennedy Center for The Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., and visited the Washington National Opera costume studio in Takoma Park.
Simmons said he hopes to have the program at school next year but with Salners retiring later this month, he is unsure if the yet-to-be-hired fifth-grade teacher will be willing to take on the project, which he said works best with co-teaching.
Simmons said he hopes students will at least gain an appreciation for the arts.
"Some day they might not be on an opera stage or theater stage but they'll go and they'll support it," Simmons said.
E-mail Natalie McGill at nmcgill@gazette.net.
