For many children, the word opera may bring to mind unfamiliar languages, formal stages, and music that seems far removed from everyday life. Opera Is Awesome by Linda Suda challenges that impression by placing children directly inside the world of classical music.
The book presents opera as something children can sing, act, understand, and enjoy. Rather than beginning with long explanations about musical history, it uses theatre, humour, movement, and memorable characters to introduce important ideas about singing and performance.
Children meet figures such as Donahue Diaphragm, Vic and Vinnie Vocal Cords, Rosie the Resonator, and the Arturo Articulators. Each character represents part of the singer’s vocal apparatus, turning what could be a technical lesson into an entertaining stage experience. Breathing, sound production, resonance, diction, posture, and movement become part of the story.
This approach can change the way young performers respond to classical music. Instead of being told that opera is important, they experience why it can be exciting. They rehearse, move across the stage, listen for musical cues, deliver dialogue, and work together as an ensemble.
The production also introduces children to music connected with composers and works including Mozart, Bizet, Verdi, Johann Strauss, Gilbert and Sullivan, and Victor Herbert. These selections become part of a lively theatrical setting rather than isolated pieces of music. Children begin to recognise that classical music can carry humour, drama, personality, and movement.
Theatre also gives students an opportunity to develop skills that extend beyond music. Performing requires attention, preparation, cooperation, memory, expression, and confidence. Every entrance, line, song, and movement depends on children learning how their individual contribution supports the entire cast.
Linda Suda created Opera Is Awesome as a learning opera for children and audiences alike. Her experience as a singer, director, music educator, and teaching artist is reflected in a production that respects both the art form and the young people performing it.
Schools, music teachers, theatre programmes, and community arts groups looking for an engaging introduction to opera can use the book as both a performance resource and an educational experience.
Opera does not have to remain behind the doors of professional theatres. Children can encounter it early, perform it with confidence, and discover that classical music has room for laughter, imagination, movement, and fun.
Opera Is Awesome gives young performers the chance to make that discovery for themselves.
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