This is opera?

No, it’s not stuffy. And “Sing Out Loud” proves it

BY LINDA CHIAVAROLI

L.A. Opera's LeRoy Villanueva

When LeRoy Villanueva was an 8-year-old attending school in the San Fernando Valley, he was plucked from among dozens of youngsters to become a member of the California Boys’ Choir. He was soon living the life of a professional singer, traveling across the United States, being coached and tutored while on the road and at home performing with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the New York City Opera when it came to L.A. on tour.

“It really all happened by chance,” says baritone Villanueva, one of four singers and a pianist from L.A. Opera who will be featured in the interactive “Sing Out Loud!,” the Ford’s Big!World!Fun! family show on August 28. LeRoy’s singing began long before the boys’ choir director came to his school.

“My brother and I sang in the church choir,” Villanueva recalls. In fact, a family quartet in which the parents joined the brothers used to perform in church as well. “It was just so easy for us to sing harmony. I encourage anybody who wants to sing for fun to join a choir.”

Villanueva participates in L.A Opera's educational programs for children

“Fun” is the operative word for L.A. Opera’s educational programs, according to Villanueva. He still tours all over the world, sometimes performing in opera or recitals on the very same stages where he sang as a boy chorister. But you’ll also find him in libraries doing programs like “Sing Out Loud!”

“The kids are right under our feet and there’s a lot of improv going on. If the kids just blurt out something, you respond. You have to keep the connection. You make a joke or talk to the kid. Anything to keep the dialogue going.”

And, of course, there’s the music itself, irresistible even if you know nothing about opera, or who composed it or what that aria title in Italian means. “Sing Out Loud!” will include such staples as the Toreador Song from Carmen — an ego-swelling boast from a triumphant bullfighter — and a foray into musical theater — which can be thought of as American opera — with “Oh What a Beautiful Morning” from Oklahoma and “I Feel Pretty” from West Side Story.

Excerpts from The Girl of the Golden West show opera as theatre, a story told through music. In fact the plot could be a Western movie: Local sheriff wants to marry female saloon owner, but she loves a bandit on the run. The two play poker. If she wins, the bandit goes free. If the sheriff wins, she’ll marry him.

Villanueva in "The Girl of the Golden West"

Villanueva will be singing the sheriff in that scene, which is part of another LA Opera program, “Puccini Opera Tales.” “L.A. Opera is doing educational programs no one else in doing,” says Villanueva and describes in-school opera productions with the students performing and fulfilling literature and history requirements at the same time. “I was just on the island of Malta and they were very intrigued by this.”

If you are the sort of person who confines singing to the shower or just mouths the words of the “Star Spangled Banner” at the ballpark, “Sing Out Loud!” may be your liberation. “I’ve got to be honest,” says Villanueva, “we find it’s not really that difficult to get folks to sing along. We just have so much fun, people are going to be a lot looser.”

Linda Chiavaroli, Director of Communications for the Los Angeles County Arts Commission/Ford Theatres, has worked in marketing and pr for dance companies, orchestras, individual artists and arts centers, and as a journalist covering the performing arts.

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