Opera for the Young's tour of The Pirates of Penzance came to an early close in March as schools across the Midwest sent students home to quarantine with their families. In the days and weeks that followed, Opera for the Young's dedicated staff has put together a...
OFTY makes annual additions to our teaching materials to help students better prepare for their role in the show. This season, we created a short video series for schools introducing each character from The Pirates of Penzance. In the series, OFTY artists describe how they see...
Madison, WI - Opera for the Young (OFTY) is celebrating 50 years of introducing elementary students to opera with a capital campaign to fund a million-dollar endowment. Founded in 1970 by six musicians with a passion for opera and a vision to take professional performance...
The cast arrives in Madison this Friday, and we can't wait to begin work on our 2019/20 production of The Pirates of Penzance with them! The tour begins October 17th - find a show near you. Learn more about each performer by clicking on their...
Opera for Young began offering teaching materials in the 1980's. Each season, we rework these tools to better serve the needs of our host schools. The tutorial recording is an important piece of the OFTY package - Artistic Director Diane Garton Edie walks teachers and students through the show, while our...
Opera for the Young received its first grant from the NEA in 2000, and since then has received substantial annual support for our programs. Our upcoming adaptation of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance will receive OFTY's largest award yet - $22,000 towards the 2019/2020 school tour. We're honored...
We say it all the time - opera is the perfect vehicle to ignite excitement for all of the arts, not just singing. One of the most important artforms of opera is costume design. We interviewed Opera for the Young's Resident Costume Designer, Karen Brown-Larimore,...
After an intense couple of years of creative energies swirling, our original opera, “Super Storm!” blew into schools this week! Our Fall Tour “hailed” to areas in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Illinois. OFTY has received positive feedback from audience members, students, and teachers: “We have brought OFTY...
Rehearsal week for “Super Storm!” is underway! 15 cast members from around the country have blown into Madison to prepare for our 2018-2019 tour. Since “Super Storm! is an original creation, OFTY has assembled a super team of production artists for this debut tour of...
Every year we meet hundreds of innovative music educators along our tour, and we're excited to introduce you to one of those teachers. Karl Kessler works with students at both Butte des Morts Elementary and Jefferson Elementary in Menasha, WI. We interviewed him at Butte...