Lyric Opera 2023-2024 Issue 5 - Cinderella

Lyric Opera of Chicago | 70 Good Grades The scene: In a garden behind a Chicago elementary school, a fifth-grader is doing bicep curls. Another kid enters, yelling, “That’s it, Curtis! We’re done! I’m not your girlfriend anymore!” An ensemble of kids then fills the courtyard stage to sing, “I can buy myself flowers / Write my name in the sand.” It’s a brand-new, one-time-only operatic version of Seedfolks , a book by Paul Fleischman about a diverse neighborhood working together to build a community garden. A class at Solomon Elementary School in the city’s North Park neighborhood put the show together through Lyric’s Elementary Opera Residency, a program pairing classes of first- through fifth-graders with teaching artists, to guide the students in the creation and performance of original shows. The program, an initiative of Lyric Unlimited, the company’s Learning and Creative Engagement department, opens up the art form of opera to the kids, who otherwise might not have much exposure to it—and provides them a space to cultivate creative ideas together and step out as performers. Paige Dirkes-Jacks is a teaching artist with Lyric. A recent graduate of Northwestern University with a vocal performance degree, Dirkes-Jacks has also directed storefront opera projects such as La Femme Bohème , an all-female/nonbinary version of the Puccini classic put on by Ouroboros Opera and The Valkyrie Ensemble. In the Elementary Opera Residency program, she has shepherded five different classrooms through casting and staging ideas, Lyric’s Elementary Opera Residency program brings the art form to life in unexpected places Dirkes-Jacks confers with a student performer during a visit as part of Lyric’s Elementary Opera Residency Program. By Graham Meyer Jaclyn Simpson Photography