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About Portland Opera To Go

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Portland Opera To Go

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Each year Portland Opera To Go takes an opera on the road, sharing the power of opera, music, and theater with schools and communities throughout Oregon and SW Washington. It’s not necessarily the easiest thing in the world, as you might imagine. But it’s one of the most rewarding . . . for us and for the thousands upon thousands of students who get to experience live opera, many for the first time.


And this blog will give you a first-hand view from the performers themselves of what it’s like when Opera hits the road!

 

Here’s a link to more information on the tour and the program.

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Week 10: Goodbye (for now)!

Wow!  What a wonderful (almost) three months this has been! We've traversed many miles, sang many hours and made

Oh no! Pamina!

so many new friendships. 


This week we ventured down to beautiful southern Oregon to elementary schools in Medford, Grants Pass, Jacksonville, Klamath Falls and back to Portland to perform three public performances at The Hampton Opera Center.


Since this is my last blog, I wanted to share a few of my favorite memories from these three months on the road...


During a Q&A at one school, a young Latino boy raised his hand and asked Claudia if she spoke Spanish.  When she responded (in Spanish), "Yes I do, do you?"  He answered, "Si!" and turned to his teacher with such a look of pride to be able to speak Spanish like one of the opera singers! This meant a lot to Claudia and all of her fellow POGOers as well!

 

Dear Tamino

 

POGO Week 9: PCPA, Providence and RINALDO!

Hello Awesome POGO Blog Followers! Ksenia here (aka Queenie or 1st Lady...and sometimes Papagena) We are in our home stretch, two more weeks to go. This last week proved to be a toughie as many of us were battling icky sickies and allergies from the beautiful weather. We started off our week on Monday with two shows, one of which was in the Portland Center for Performing Arts. More specifically, the lobby of where the Newmark Theatre is (For those attending Rinaldo this week....p.s.- go see it! it's awesome, so much glitter and shirtless barihunkiness). The acoustics made it so easy to sing, which is not always the case for every space we're in. The performance was well attended and we even had a special appearance by little Mozart himself!


Later that day we received an emergency email that our next two days of shows had been rescheduled so we could have a completely healthy cast. We try our best to hand sanitize, and stay as healthy as possible but with 3 months of touring, it's bound to happen. Thursday we were back on the road with a show at Colonel Wright Elementary — a particularly vocally excited bunch (which we love to hear!). Friday was our marathon day, leaving at 9am to head out to Mosier for a show, heading back to The Hampton Opera Center for about a 40min. break then meeting back up at Providence Hospital for an evening show. You might be surprised to learn that a good handful of our shows are NOT at schools, but at community centers and are open to the public.

Singing for your Supper

Greetings!  I'm David, the collaborative pianist for POGO.  This is my 3rd year on tour and it's been a busy one.  Want to see what our schedule looked like last week?  Here it is.


Monday 3/4
7:30 - Meet at HOC and depart for View Acres Elementary (Milwaukie)
8 - Arrive and setup at VAE
9 - Classroom time
10- Magic Flute
11-12 - Lunch
12:30 - Magic Flute
1:30 - Load truck and depart for HOC


Tuesday 3/5
10:30 - Meet at HOC and depart for St. Joseph School (Salem)
12 - Arrive and setup at SJS
1 - Classroom time
2 - Magic Flute
3 - Load truck and depart for HOC


Wednesday 3/6
7:15 - Meet at HOC and depart for Glencoe Elementary(Portland)
7:45 - Arrive and setup at GE
8:30 - Magic Flute
9:40 - Magic Flute
10:40 - Load truck and depart for HOC


Thursday 3/7
6 - Meet at HOC and depart for Cannon Beach Elementary
8 - Arrive and setup at CBE
8:50 - Classroom time
9:50 - Magic Flute
10:50 - Load truck and depart for Nehalem Elementary
12:40 Arrive and setup at NE
1:40 - Magic Flute
2:40 - Load truck and depart for hotel - Riverwalk Inn, Astoria


Friday 3/8
7:10 - Meet in lobby and depart for Lewis and Clark Elementary (Astoria)
7:30 - Arrive and setup at L&CE
8:30 - Magic Flute
10:00 - Magic Flute
11 - Load truck
11:40- 1 - Lunch
1:30 - Classroom time
2 - depart for HOC