With a collaboration between the Amarillo Opera and the Texas Tech University School of Music, the operatic art form is going to increase its prevalence in both the Texas Panhandle and the South Plains.

The entities recently came together to establish the Amarillo Opera Studio, giving Texas Tech students the chance to receive real-world experience through performing operatic works for children throughout the region.

Four performers with the studio will be in Amarillo Wednesday and Thursday to perform the “Billy Goats Gruff” children’s opera for free to members of the community. It will be performed at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday at the Amarillo Zoo, 5:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Amarillo Botanical Gardens and at 11 a.m. and 6 p.m. Thursday at Sam Houston Park.

Carol Coleson, director of outreach and education for Amarillo Opera, said the idea for the partnership has been in the works for years between Mary Jane Johnson, general and artistic director of the opera, and Rebecca Hays, an associate professor of voice at Texas Tech.

Hays said this partnership gives her students the chance to have experience out in the field.

“Lots of communities that are our size and larger have regional opera houses like Amarillo and with that, have an outreach program that also offers an apprentice-type situation for singers who are in local university programs pursuing graduate degrees or certificates,” Hays said. “We have graduate degrees at Tech, and we created an opera certificate as well, when we were coming up with this scheme, if you will, to make this partnership happen.”

This is the first-time members of the studio will perform in Amarillo, Coleson said. The initial plan was for this production to be performed for children at more than 30 schools across the Panhandle, through a partnership with the Amarillo Independent School District and Window on a Wider World.

But because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, plans had to shift to host outdoor, socially distanced performances, Coleson said. During each staging, the performers will be wearing face shields to further take precautions against the virus.

Hays said the four performers had to be creative, rehearsing through video conferencing online or socially distanced in a backyard.

“They’ve really risen to the challenge of it. I think that just the fact that they are going to be able to sing this music… is really exciting to them,” she said. “All live performance art, right now, is having to kind of think outside the box as far as how we are going to deliver our message to the communities and to really grow as artists, really in the educational setting.”

Because this work has an anti-bullying message, Shayna Tayloe, a recent doctoral graduate of Texas Tech and one of the performers in the production, said it is perfect for kids and their families. It may be also one of the first times kids who watch the production have been exposed to opera.

“Because it’s in English, it makes it a lot more accessible and easier (to understand),” Tayloe said. “What we have been trying to do is that our words are understood because sometimes, singing in the operatic style, it’s easy for words to become mish-mashed and difficult to understand. We are trying to bring out the text and making sure the kids understand everything that we are saying.”

This educational outreach also gives the performers an opportunity they may have not experienced before, Coleson said.

“I feel like that is a different animal and I feel like in ways, It’s a little more rewarding and a little more challenging,” she said. “Their audiences are going to be very real. Kids are brutal.”

Coleson said she feels the accessibility of this production could bring area kids to begin the process of falling in love with the art form.

“It’s the baby steps, you know. Start off with this and then grow to love it,” Coleson said. “We are hoping to build opera lovers and so making it fun, making it funny, having a good message, having little classical pieces in there, these are all really good selling and starting points. It kind of sold us on this show.”

Tayloe said this kind of production shows that the typical stereotypes associated with opera are not always accurate.

“There’s a stereotype about opera that it’s all fat women in horns with spears,” Tayloe said. “I think it’s really important for the general public, especially kids who are impressionable and will probably be seeing this for the first time, to know that opera is not just for the elite.”

For more information about the upcoming performances of “Billy Goats Gruff,” visit http://www.amarilloopera.org.