Life is about opposites, good – bad, happy – sad. “Balance is the key … You’re big enough to include everything.” This is the message of “Dragon’s Breath,” a children’s opera performed by the Seagle Festival at the Lake George Junior/Senior High School on Wednesday morning. The production was presented by the Caldwell-Lake George Library utilizing a Stewart’s Shop Holiday Match Grant.
Library Director Laura Burrows says the library brings the Seagle Festival to Lake George each summer to perform for the Lake George Youth Commission. Last year, Burrow says, they opened the performance to the public, and the positive response led them to continue inviting the public to the event.
By a show of hands, nearly all the children attending indicated this was their first experience with opera, and the Seagle member who introduced the program explained to the young audience they could show excitement during the show by applauding and shouting “Bravo!” The children practiced both these ways of expressing themselves and, on cue, also demonstrated how they expressed fear, anger and excitement.
“Dragon’s Breath” is a creation of composer Evan Mack and librettist Joshua McGuire. The opera was commissioned by the Samford School of the Arts and premiered in November 2023 at Samford’s Harrison Theatre. It is the story of 11-year-old Alan, performed Wednesday by Kanade Motomura, who struggles with feelings of anger towards his parents, played by Georgia Thomas and Luke Dailey. His “fiery” feelings take the form of a dragon, performed by William Jordan, who is simultaneously a beautiful butterfly, demonstrating the idea that opposites combine to make a whole. At the start of the story, Alan believes he must kill the dragon, but comes to accept that the dragon is part of himself, and he has the power to tame it.
The performance included audience participation with the actors calling children onto the stage to help set a meter that balances good and bad. As young Alan learns a technique to control his emotions, the audience joins him in deep breathing exercises to tame anxious feelings.
Seagle Music Colony was founded in 1915 by renowned baritone and music teacher Oscar Seagle. Today, operating as Seagle Festival, the Schroon Lake-based not-for-profit organization pursues a mission to promote emerging talents through the production of quality opera and musical theatre.
The Caldwell-Lake George Library holds programs throughout the summer for the Youth Commission. Each Friday the library hosts the Primary Enrichment Program for kindergarten and first-grade students. “We’re trying to grow readers,” says Burrows, and they seem to be succeeding as Burrow reports that “almost everyone has a library card, and they come in during the week to check out books.”