Trudie Lee

From Hannaraptor

DETAILS

Hannaraptor - a one act opera for young audiences
Bert Church Theatre
Vertigo Theatre
Saturday, April 5 - Saturday, April 5 Friday, May 2 - Sunday, May 4

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Vertigo Theatre

When you see “for young people” and “dinosaurs” appear together in a sentence, you might be forgiven for flashing back to lost hours of your life enduring, say, The Land Before Time 11: Invasion of the Tinysauruses in the company of a young friend or significant other (we won’t ask).

Fear not. Calgary Opera’s dinosaur-themed Hannaraptor, a brand new, one-act opera for young people, is a tuneful and engaging piece of theatre. Created by Edmonton composer Allan Gilliland and Vancouver poet and playwright Val Brandt, the show has spent the last month rampaging through schools and other venues in Southern Alberta.

Set in the Badlands near Drumheller, Hannaraptor is the story of a family struggling with unfortunate circumstances and tough choices. Five years after the death of her father, 17-year-old Hanna secretly continues to unearth the skeleton of a rare dinosaur they discovered together on the family farm. A newcomer threatens not only to take her father’s place in the family, but also to pave over the farm and sell the precious 65-million-year-old “Hannaraptor” skeleton to private interests.

Hannaraptor is entertaining, but it also offers several layers of thought-provoking content. People of all ages will find something they can dig. Elementary-school-aged children groove on the dinosaur theme. For them, the highlight is probably the “Dinosaur Naming Song,” with breakneck, tongue-twister lyrics featuring names of dinosaurs that once lived in what we now call Alberta. Adolescents will relate to the way young people’s lives can be turned upside down by unstable family dynamics and may pick up on the fact that Hanna empowers herself by deciding to stand up to commercial interests.

The environmental subtext of the opera is most likely to resonate with adults. At one point, a greedy developer sings, “we can trade these bones for a share of the good life,” a reminder to Albertans that the gooey black stuff that comes out of the ground is called “fossil fuel” for a reason.

Another key to the show’s success is Gilliland’s engaging yet sophisticated musical score. He and Brandt were determined to write an opera that respected their intended audience. “I knew that as long as I wrote memorable, at times tuneful, emotional, scary and exciting music, and as long as I fit all the parts of the story properly, [the kids] would get it,” says Gilliland.

Tenor Graham Thomson, one of the eight members of Calgary Opera’s Emerging Artist program who form the opera’s cast, says that the show has been well-received. “I think the show plays well to all audiences. It’s not specifically written for kids, it’s written for a broad audience, and it has a lot of high-energy emotions.”

Calgary Opera has become the unquestioned Canadian leader in commissioning and producing new operas. Hannaraptor is the second new opera for young people it has staged in the past decade (Allan Bell and Rick McNair’s Turtle Wakes is the other), showing a strong commitment to developing new audiences. Baritone Benjamin Covey has enjoyed performing for young people. “It’s just been awesome touring around and knowing that we’re starting the seeds of new things for these kids, that hopefully it’ll benefit Canadian culture.”

For many children, Hannaraptor will be their first exposure to opera, and as soprano Eve-Lyn de la Haye notes, they have many questions after the show. “One of the questions yesterday was, ‘How come you sing everything?’ I thought that was a really good question, that’s what opera is.”

Other questions focus on dinosaurs, of course. Thomson recalls that one elementary school student in the small town of Gem was curious about the show’s dinosaur skeleton model. “One of the kids said, ‘Isn’t that dinosaur actually based on archaeopteryx?’ Everyone said, ‘Yeah, well done.’ I think that turns our perceptions of what kids get and what adults get on its head, which is kind of fun.”