All library programs are cancelled from Monday, March 16 through Sunday, March 29th.

We are sorry for any inconvenience.

Manhatten Lyric Opera's Intro to Opera has been rescheduled for Friday, Jul 24th at 11 AM.  Please save the date!

No registration required. 

This fun and interactive introduction to opera for children ages 3+ is sponsored by the Tenafly Library Friends.  Anne Tormela, Opera Singer and Artistic Director of the Manhattan Lyric Opera, will perform 4 pieces with the help of members of the audience.

Audience members will play the parts of fairies, maidens, pirates, mad scientists and more!

No singing or prior rehearsal required. Props and costumes will be provided.

Parents and teenagers welcome to participate and help out in scenes as well!

Each aria/scene will be explained in a child-friendly manner.

 1.  Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) Sul d'un soffio etesio from Falstaff

Nanetta's aria from Verdi's last opera Falstaff.  Nanetta is the daughter of Alice and has been asked to play the part of the queen of the fairies and sing the fairy song in the woods at midnight.  This is to punish Falstaff for being silly and teach him a lesson.  Nanetta is dressed as the queen of the fairies and needs extra girls  to dance around her as fairies and extra boys to dance around as little demons and goblins.  We would also need someone to play the part of Falstaff who is cowering in fear as he naively believes that if he is dressed as the black oaksman and is in the woods at midnight and he happens to see a fairy he will die.

2. Charles Gounod (1818-1893)  Ah Je ris! From Faust

This is Marguerite's aria from Faust by Charles Gounod.  Marguerite is a young pure woman whom the elderly Faust has taken an interest in.  He wants to be young again so he makes a pact with the devil to give up his soul to be young and court Marguerite.  This being done the devil helps Faust by placing a large chest of jewels in front of Marguerite with a mirror so she can see herself.  I would need a volunteer to play Faust and another boy to play the devil.  They would watch marguerite try on the jewels and admire herself.  Several girls could shadow me doing the aria with a big basket of jewels.

3. Jacques Offenbach (1819-1880)   Les oiseaux dans la charmille ("The Doll Song") from Tales of Hoffman   

Hoffmann's first love is Olympia, an automaton created by the scientist Spalanzani. Hoffmann falls in love with her, not knowing that Olympia is a mechanical doll (Nicklausse, who knows the truth about Olympia, sings a story of a mechanical doll that looked like a human to warn Hoffmann, but is ignored by him Coppélius, Olympia's co-creator and this act's incarnation of Nemesis, sells Hoffmann magic glasses which make Olympia appear as a real woman Olympia sings one of the opera's most famous arias, Les oiseaux dans la charmille ("The Doll Song"), in which she periodically runs down and needs to be wound up before she can continue. Hoffmann is tricked into believing that his affections are returned, to the bemusement of Nicklausse, who subtly tries to warn his friend. (While dancing with Olympia, Hoffmann falls on the ground and his glasses break. At the same time, Coppélius appears and tears Olympia apart, in retaliation for having been tricked out of his fees by Spalanzani. With the crowd laughing at him, Hoffmann realizes that he was in love with an automaton.

I would need two boys to play the part of the two inventors,(they would have a large key to wind up Olympia with) one boy to play Nicklausse and one boy to be Hoffman.

4.  Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan (1842-1900)   Poor wandering one from The Pirates of Penzance;

Mabel is the head of her large family of sisters and they have gone off to do something very naughty for the 1850s they take off their stockings and are dangling their bare feet in the water. When a young (newly ex pirate named Frederick) approaches them and asks them to help him reform.  His nursemaid apparently (being hard of hearing) mistakenly apprenticed him to a band of pirates as a youth instead of a pilot of a ship. They all shun him except mabel who finds him very attractive.  Needed for the scene several girls to be the sisters and one boy to play Frederick.