TeenTix Blog Opera

As I made my way to my seat in the ever-crowded McCaw Hall theater, I couldn’t help but pay attention to the audience around me. Surrounded by opera-goers in pirate garb, I was immediately immersed in the lively atmosphere—I was clearly not the only one enthusiastic about seeing The Pirates of Penzance. With the show’s 146-year history and countless adaptations, it was obvious that the opera, telling the tale of a young pirate and the daughter of a major general falling in love, has captivated the hearts of many. As the story unfolds, Frederic, a sincere young man who accidentally became an apprentice to a group of pirates, yearns to escape his criminal lifestyle and marry Mabel, the quirky young daughter of the major general. But when a loophole in his contract ruins his chance to break free, Frederic is forced to choose between loyalty and love.

After the crowd settled down, the dynamic, majestic orchestra conducted by David Charles Abell began to play the overture. While I was admiring the orchestra, the curtain whisked open to reveal an incredibly spirited crew of pirates, complete with a large boat which swiftly sailed into place. Led by the Pirate King (Reginald Smith Jr.), the pirates were dressed head-to-toe in clashing yet appealing patterns and were extremely well costumed thanks to costumer James Schuette. The patterns enhanced the swashbuckling and rambunctious nature of each pirate. While the pirates sang about young pirate Frederic’s (David Portillo) birthday, they danced around the stage, riddled with unique props that added to the comedy and characterization of each pirate in the chorus. Some pirates held books, some held teddy bears, and most had an arsenal of weapons, all of which helped me visualize who these pirates truly were.David Portillo (Frederic) and Vanessa Becerra (Mabel) in "The Pirates of Penzance" at Seattle Opera. © David Jaewon Oh.

It's too bad the word ‘opera’ is such a turn-off for young people. If I could have just convinced teens to watch the recent version of The Magic Flute playing at the Seattle Opera, their entire perspective on the art form would have changed, guaranteed. 

As I made my way through the opera house in search of my seat, I noticed that the audience was full of older adults. I was surprised by this, considering how every other performance that I’ve been to at McGraw Hall was seen by people of all ages. I suspect that this all has to do with the word ‘opera.’ The lights shut off, a spotlight hit the conductor, and the show began. For the next two hours, I was transported into a fairytale, but one infinitely more epic than your run-of-the-mill children's story.  

“We are a nation trapped inside a nation. We are a nation dying to be born,” Malcolm X sings, and thus begins a tale of freedom, hatred, and martyrdom, all performed by the talented and dynamic performers of Seattle Opera at McCaw Hall. X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X is a three-hour-long journey, taking audiences through the 1900s from the perspective of the marginalized Black community, facing crushing oppression and horrific violence. It stars Kenneth Kellogg in the titular role of a complex leader during the Civil Rights Movement. The opera tells an intricate story that everybody needs to hear.

Act one opens with the characters waiting for Reverend Earl Little, Malcolm’s father. While they wait under high stress, the characters inform us of their constant fears of violence and murder by white supremacist groups as the names of people who had to pay for this hatred and racism with their lives are projected on the ceiling, scrolling quickly to showcase the immense scale of this tragedy with a powerful impact. In this act, Leah Hawkins, who plays Malcolm’s mother, Louise, is featured in a stunning aria about the haunting attacks she fears. After this, it is revealed that Earl Little was killed, leading to the mental ruination of Louise. Malcolm is subsequently brought to Boston by his older sister, where he gets involved in a robbery and is arrested.

This February, in honor of Groundhog Day, the events that the newsroom is reviewing shed light on the dilemmas that have come to define the human experience: Who am I? Does joy come from continuity or change? Will there be another six weeks of winter? Though the fact that we continue to struggle with these questions can feel disheartening, we can also relish the fact that we, like so many of our ancestors, have the opportunity to untangle the complicated web of human existence.

Joy Harjo will be at Seattle Town Hall on February 27, a poet known for her writings on reconciling the past with the future as we all ask ourselves, how do we remember the past and our heritage without idealizing the pain in our history? Also taking inspiration from history, ArtsWest is running Born With Teeth from February 1 through 25. The play depicts queer, fictionalized depictions of William Shakespeare and Kit Marlowe, capturing the conflict experienced by all queer people and the erasure of their history while celebrating queer joy and excellence.

The month of May is the last month of spring—enjoy it before the hot waves of summer hit us with our exclusive curation of art to experience this month!

If you’re in the business of unfiltered, unscripted stories, then The Moth Mainstage is the May event you’re looking for! Watch five storytellers develop and shape their stories with the Moth’s directors.

Content warning: suicide, abuse

A pressing story of love during harsh times, A Thousand Splendid Suns is finally ready for its world premiere at Seattle Opera. The work, commissioned by Seattle Opera in 2015, is written by Seattle-born composer Sheila Silver and librettist Stephen Kitsakos. Based on Khaled Hosseini’s book of the same name, the opera is an epic tale set in Afghanistan from 1974 to 2001. Suns is unforgettably intense, a gripping story brought to life by heart-wrenching music.

Seattle Opera’s A Very Drunken Christmas Carol is a festive and chaotic journey through the world of opera. The audience follows the Drunken Tenor, a talented and recognized singer who’s fallen into the bad habit of arriving to shows unprepared, stressing out his duet partners, and drowning himself in alcohol. After yet another messy performance, the opera star is called on by a mysterious voice and thrust into the classic trials of the Christmas Carol. Though an appealing concept, the opera suffers greatly from poor plot development and mediocre comedy, leaving audiences with a heaving pile of disappointment.

The Christmas Carol archetypes of past, present, and future underpin a widely underwhelming story which does nothing to grip the audience. Jumping into the past we meet an innocent Tenor who enters the opera scene under questionable guidance from his mentor and partner, the Baritone. The Baritone passes on his dubious habits of carrying a flask at all times, offering sips before performances for extra confidence, and entering duets wholly unprepared. This easily predictable storyline carries no energy, simply serving as an unsatisfying and unoriginal plot point. The lack of chemistry and heavy-handed dialogue between the tenor and the Baritone further weakens the story. The Drunken Tenor (Robert McPherson) in A Very Drunken Christmas Carol. Photo courtesy of Seattle Opera.

As we enter the depths of winter and the holiday season, art in Seattle is picking up a familiar festive theme—with a twist, of course. Tradition connects us to our heritage and identity, but it can also feel limiting. The ability to evolve traditions and create something new and interesting for the present is and has always been integral to art. Rest assured, there will be plenty of opportunities to revisit and reconstruct our favorite holiday classics this December.

Seattle Public Theater is bringing a Christmas classic to the mix with a revival of their A Very Die Hard Christmas, running from December 3 — 30. Similarly, A Very Drunken Christmas Carol is coming back to the Seattle Opera after a sold-out run in the 2021 season.

Maybe the month of February, which is filled with celebrations of love, community, and sparkling pink confetti, will provide a sweet reprieve from these past bitter months. We at TeenTix certainly know that enjoying accessible art of all forms is a great way to feel the mood. The month offers a diverse selection of art events, from lectures to operas to plays—you have the freedom to choose!

Kicking the month off, the Newsroom will cover SAL’s (Seattle Arts & Lectures) exploration of complex ethical questions in conversation with Michael Schur. Schur is renowned for his work creating or writing for the shows The Office, Parks and Recreation, and The Good Place. If you’re not the biggest TV show buff, Seattle Town Hall will be hosting a discussion with leading intelligence expert Amy B. Zegart on The History and Future of Espionage in the U.S. Zegart clarifies harmful cognitive biases that the media has instilled in us about espionage, and even reveals information about the current endeavors of U.S. intelligence agencies.

McCaw Hall opened its doors for a Seattle Opera performance for the first time since the pandemic. La Bohème, a hundred year old story of love, loss, and illness, was made especially potent as the first show at McCaw Hall in 18 months.

La Bohème follows young Parisian artists Rodolfo and Marcello as they fall in and out of love. Rodolfo meets sweet-girl-next-door Mimi, and their love—as well as their subsequent tragedy—become the heart of the show. Musetta, a friend of Mimi’s, carries a more comedic, on-again-off-again romance with Marcello. The underlying fear of disease and how it interacts with the characters economic status as artists is a tragically age old story. It’s a story that felt heartachingly familiar in the midst of the pandemic. Similar to these four characters, there were many artists putting their bodies on the line in this last year, making La Bohème a thoughtful and timely choice from the Seattle Opera.

Having seen the art world respond to a global pandemic in a myriad of ways, from a socially distanced movie theater to pre-recorded modern dance (confined by a computer screen), I was eager to see how opera would adapt as well. The online production of The Big Opera Show, and online fundraiser for Seattle Opera, seemed the perfect way to explore this art medium digitally. Because I have not seen much opera in person, I was hopeful that the medley of performances The Big Opera Show provided would give my fresh perspective much to enjoy.

Although I am quite new to the opera form of art, I was not going into this experience completely clueless. An opera that I had the chance of viewing during the long-ago pre-covid times was The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs, which made a point to inform the audience that the performers were using microphones. This was notable because, traditionally, performances by the Seattle Opera do not utilize microphones. While microphones can be used to blend operatic voices with electrically amplified instruments to create a cohesive piece or assist a performance that consists of more dialogue than usual, it is not the norm. Because of this, I was curious to see how the required use of microphones for the online format would affect the gravity of the performance. Thankfully, the performers’ voices translated powerfully even through my laptop’s speakers.

As vaccination rates rise, we can see the tail end of the pandemic on the horizon (knock on wood!). In this uncertainty-filled year, it's a huge relief to see improving conditions, though exercising caution is more important than ever. Still, warmer weather is peeking around the corner, and there's plenty of art and media for you to explore this month—no matter what you're looking for.

It’s no secret that the news has gotten everyone thinking about what comes next. For those interested in what life might look like in the future, look no further than Unexpected Productions’ Seattle Theatresports, a now in-person improv show. For those who prefer to see what teens envision the coming years to look like, check out SIFF’s Futurewave, an exciting lineup of movies and shorts curated for youth audiences.

Virtual art has become the predominant form of expression and community during coronavirus, perhaps because it has the ability to connect audiences and creators alike: the audience sitting in their homes with a cup of coffee, and the creators either alone in a studio or sitting in their own living room. Online art brings connection and empathy to quarantine audiences around the world. Virtual art is human; it’s how we can stay tied to each other in these months of fear and uncertainty.

A beloved Seattle organization that recognizes the power in online performance is Seattle Opera: their website continues the Opera’s work through (sometimes) lonely screens, with performances that are updated weekly. The organization offers a host of ways to engage in opera during quarantine, and their Opera At Home programming is great for those who want to learn more about the medium.

Our quarantine art viewing is still going strong! One thing we have noticed during online school, however, is that we find ourselves procrastinating far more than we used to. Our emails are open, our phones are right next to us, and YouTube and Netflix are only one click away…

There’s also a lot to procrastinate! Some may say that because AP tests are only forty-five minutes, they cause less stress; others believe that because many final exams have been canceled, we don’t need to study; still others think that because many schools are going pass/fail, grades don’t matter anymore. To all those people, we say only this: we’re teenagers, and even when it’s not necessary, we make procrastinating a full-time job! (Also, do you see how we slid in an AP-English-worthy concession there? Take notes, College Board.)

Is anyone else very, very, very, bored? It’s weird to think that not even a month ago, we were all living entirely different lives. On March 1st, we were still going about our normal routines: taking buses to school, eating lunch (and sharing food!) with friends, and of course, using our TeenTix passes. But all that has changed. Now, I go to my classes via Zoom, I take a walk around the block, and, like everyone else, I try my best to help contain COVID-19. To fill my boredom, I have participated in lots of virtual art. There are many lessons we have learned since quarantine and one of the big ones is that humans are adaptable; we change to fit our environment no matter how drastic the situation.

Just like how we have had to adapt, so has art, by catering to an online audience. One can no longer fill McCaw Hall or the beautiful MOHAI Museum but can instead fill an infinite number of virtual seats through a computer screen. Currently, Jet City Improv is hosting a virtual happy hour via Twitch. Seattle Opera and Seattle Art Museum have created an interactive page full of weekly podcasts, interviews, and hand-picked playlists. And those are just a few of the events going on this month! I love being able to support local art right from my bed by interacting, sharing, and donating to their websites. But the true power of virtual art is the ability to experience it from anywhere, try something new, and hear the voices of people from all over the world.

A flash of light, a sign reading “Birdland” descending and spanning the length of the stage, directly beneath, a lone man staring at his own corpse. These elements serve to transform 7:30 pm on a Wednesday to a midnight in the mid-1950s at Seattle Opera’s latest production, Charlie Parker’s Yardbird, inspired by the life (and afterlife) of jazz icon Charlie Parker. The opera begins at the moment of Parker’s death from a heroin overdose...in the bed of his socialite lover at a segregated hotel. As a spirit, he suddenly finds himself back at Birdland bar, where he had been banned years before for drunken conduct, despite the bar being named after him.

The libretto, written by Bridgette A. Wimberly, follows Parker as he reconciles with his life, and attempts to write a classical symphony as a ghost. Yardbird is the next step in a long line of biographical productions attempting to revive legendary figures, following The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs, performed last year at the Seattle Opera. Frederick Ballentine (Charlie Parker) & Angela Brown (Addie Parker) in Charlie Parker’s Yardbird at Seattle Opera. Photo by Sunny Martini.

We all promise ourselves that the new year will bring a “new me,” but let’s all be honest and admit that the few people among us who still maintain resolutions have already forgotten about them by now. Who even designed the calendar system so that the year would start in the middle of winter? No, the true start of the year is now, with the beginning of Spring! It’s bright, it’s sunny, and we’ve got just the art to give you that fresh start we all need right now!

If you’re looking to shock yourself awake this Spring, there’s no better place to start than Rebecca Brewer’s Natural Horror at the Frye Art Museum. Toying with the psychological effect of the relationship between humans and the natural world, the pieces seem to come alive with their bold and flowing shapes evoking expressionistic painting through the medium of crafts.

To many teens, opera can seem boring. But this descriptor is the antithesis of Low Brow Opera Collective’s opera #adulting. An outrageous take on life as a millennial Seattleite, #adulting is a relatable and modern revitalization of a classic art form.

Eschewing a continuous narrative, #adulting presented its story through a series of sketches that follow its protagonist Bucket and her colorful Craigslist-found roommates as they battle student loans, unemployment, Verizon customer service, and food theft. Each roommate (portrayed beautifully by Eric Angus Jeffords, Christine Oshiki, Krissy Terwilliger, and Jared White) serves as a caricature of a millennial stereotype. Their struggles were comically shallow, but the overarching theme of confusion and uncertainty was entirely relatable and surprisingly poignant. This relatability is in part thanks to the libretto by Natalie Stewart Elder and the score by John Ervin Brooks, which add to the comedic and melodramatic elements with apt emotional shifts.

Seattle Opera's newest opera, an adaptation of the book The Turn of The Screw by Henry James, will leave you forever haunted by the spirits that reside in the Bly mansion. In mere minutes, we are staring into a somber world cast by phantom-like blue walls. What was most memorable to me in The Turn of The Screw was the attention put into the set. When looking at the stage, it was the little things I noticed, like the blue plaid design of the governesses skirt, or the haunting lights that illuminated the children’s mischievous faces. Seeing these set details, created by scenic designer Robert Dahlstrom, lighting designer Connie Yun, and production designer Adam Larsent, communicated to me the thoughts put into helping tell each piece of the story.

The Turn of the Screw by Seattle Opera. Photo by Philip Newton.

The set transported us into the world of a traditionally spooky haunted house. What begins as a brick wall against a gray background transforms into a stately home and a dreary lake. This wall gives us a glimpse into the lives of the two haunted souls who reside in the Bly Manor. This is very central to the story because everything we see is from the governess's perspective. Some may even say the governess is mad, which can be interpreted from the dialogue in the book. In turn, this wall represents the governess's mind and shows that perhaps some things have not played out the way we, the audience, have interpreted them to be. All this is woven together by some great lighting, one wall, and a powerful projector. In these scenes, color is used in a very clever and mysterious way. In Act One, the set is washed in a mundane gray that evokes a feeling of normality, or the very cliche saying “same old, same old.” As the story progresses, the color theme changes to undertones of blue. The transition to these colors gradually overwhelms the longer the governess stays at Bly Manor and the more invested we are in the plot. At the climax, we first catch a glimpse of the ghost of Peter Quint. His set is bathed in dark blue, despite being outside, foreshadowing our meeting him and hinting that there may be more to what we see. Later on, we see a chair washed in purple light, a murky lake with hidden secrets, and two twin beds left in the kind of darkness that makes you want to wrap a blanket around yourself and cower. These color choices and themes allude to a feeling of mystery and suspense that excites us and suggests a ghostly encounter by using colors that are mysterious and dark to remind us something's not quite right. These undertones also appear in the carefully curated clothing each character wears. My favorite costume, designed by the costume designer Deborah Trout, is that of Miss Jessel, consisted of an eerie plum colored dress.

The Turn of the Screw by Seattle Opera. Photo by Philip Newton.

Get in the spooky mood with this dark, mysterious opera!

Our generous friends at Seattle Opera are offering a special deal for their current production of The Turn of the Screw: TeenTix Members can see this opera at the 2 for $10 price at either of the closing weekend performances: