Area Filmmakers Seek Funds for ‘Opera Kids’

Every September at Dwight-Englewood School, fifth-grade students come together for a musical meeting of the minds.

These 10-year-olds take part in a program called “Creating Original Opera,” which was started by The Metropolitan Opera Guild 30 years ago and has been conducted at Dwight-Englewood for the last 25 years.

From September through April, the fifth-graders at this private school in Englewood collaborate on a musical that they create from scratch. Each student contributes to the performance through various jobs, including writing the script, composing the music, acting on stage, building the set and designing costumes.

This past school year, Dwight-Englewood graduates and current filmmakers Max Sturm (Class of 2005) and Joseph Alessi (Class of 2006), as well as fellow filmmaker John Monton, filmed the students for a documentary called “Opera Kids.”

Sturm states during the film’s five-minute trailer that the movie documents the “life-changing effect an arts program can have on children.”

“Opera Kids” currently awaits post-production work on the more than 600 hours of footage. The filmmakers have created a fundraising page that expires tonight. As of Sunday afternoon, donations have slightly exceeded the $30,000 goal needed to complete the film. 

Sturm said he hopes additional donations will come through in the final stretch because surpassing the fundraising goal will allow for different versions and different lengths of the film to be produced for wider distribution.   

“My original idea was just to make a little teaser this year, but we got so invested in these particular kids that we didn’t want to let them go,” said Sturm, who quit his job last year in order to focus on the project; Alessi also quit his job, and Monton worked part time as a substitute teacher.

The men borrowed equipment from people they knew at Yale University and Vassar College, which were the schools Alessi and Sturm attended, respectively, after graduating from Dwight-Englewood.

“We managed to shoot the film for about $5,000, which is nothing,” Sturm said. “We weren’t getting paid by the school or by anyone else throughout the whole year. We just did this because we wanted to, because of what this film could do, for what it could say, for the experience it could give us as young people and as hopefully rising artists or filmmakers.”

OPERA PROGRAM ALUMNI CHERISH THE EXPERIENCE

Sturm was the only one out of the three filmmakers who participated in the Creating Original Opera program when he was in the fifth grade at Dwight-Englewood (Alessi enrolled at Dwight-Englewood in the sixth grade, and Monton attended a different school).

“This opera program at Dwight-Englewood was one of my real, first opportunities and exposure to collaboration and to performance and to the arts in that sort of focused capacity,” Sturm said. “The opera class is unlike any of the other classes that we experience. Spending the whole year working with your peers on one common goal is what makes the experience so powerful.”

Dwight-Englewood 12^th-grader Jesse Gold, of Teaneck, said before being a part of the fifth-grade opera program he didn’t have an interest in theater or the arts in general. Now he’s the president of the school’s Theatrical Stage Technicians group.

Gold said he enjoyed the collaborative process of the program as well as performing before an audience of fellow students and parents.

“This was the first time that as a class we had to rely on ourselves and each other to make something succeed,” he said. “Everyone was able to make some creative contribution to the project.”

Gold’s mother, Rochelle Rudnick, said the opera program fostered a sense of ownership and responsibility in her son, as well as in her two older children who also participated in the program.

“When I went to see the first opera that one of my children participated in – more than 10 years ago – I had no idea what to expect, and I was just blown away,” she said. “That the children could create and produce an opera on a theme that was related to their lives as fifth-graders was incredible.”

Teaneck resident Max Ballas-Bograd, who’ll be a 10^th-grader at Dwight Englewood in the fall, said he was one of the composers during his time in the opera program.

“I made songs from scratch with other students,” he said. “We used our abilities and combined our talents to make music.”

Ballas-Bograd said that in addition to gaining musical skills, he learned the value of hard work and its impact on the final product.

“The whole opera was a challenge, which made it fun,” he said. “It taught us how to work together and trust one another and to do our best.”

Dwight-Englewood incoming fourth-grader Ella Moriarty, of Teaneck, said she can’t wait until she’s a fifth-grader so she can try her hand at creating a musical. She said her enthusiasm for the opera program stems from her love of music and singing and “because it is a very special part of being in the fifth grade.”

Moriarty also said she looks forward to working with music teacher Mary Heveran, who has taught at the school for 31 years and introduced the opera program to the school.

Heveran, who is also mayor of Leonia, said through the opera program the fifth-graders begin to realize the importance of teamwork and also about taking responsibility for their own learning.

“This process requires students to make use of knowledge and concepts from other curriculum areas, such as social studies, science, physical education, math, language arts, computer science, visual art and music,” she said. “They also apply analytical skills in the process of creating and mounting the production.”

Heveran taught Sturm while he was a student at Dwight-Englewood. She said she remembers him starting at age 3, and she said she continues to be a part of his life.

“Much to my delight, Max would often surprise me by driving down from college to see an original opera production,” she said. “I have seen Max not only have a passion for the arts, but because of his love for children, he has been able to focus this documentary not only on the arts but also on the lives of children going through the process and how it helps each of them to realize their potential.”

For more information on “Opera Kids,” visit the film’s Facebook page.