This opera for children is about tolerance for being different. Click the various links below to do what they describe.

Click here to view a video of the world premiere production on YouTube.

Written in 1994; premiered at last, on April 19 and 20, 2024 in a joint production by Harrisburg Opera Association (HOA) and the Harrisburg Academy (HA), in McCormick Hall, Harrisburg Academy, Wormleysburg, Pennsylvania. The first audience consisted of over two hundred students from pre-Kindergarten through second grade — pretty much the intended demographic; the second audience included humans age 4 or so through 70 or so. All attendees expressed enormous appreciation with their applause and also their questions — because this piece was meant to have a big Q&A afterward, and we got just that.

Since audience-performer interaction was part of the opera’s design, HOA General/Artistic Director and GOLDIE Stage Director Tami Swartz and I included in the video both the Q&A and the brilliant interactive pre-opera lecture by HA music professor Michael Gamon, who was also the show’s Production Manager. I sincerely hope you’ll watch it in its entirety to get the full scope of what good serious children’s opera can do for a community, in the right hands.

My sincerest undying thanks to Tami, Michael and all the others who worked so hard and coaxed my little piece into life: Kimberly Sogioka as Goldie Locks; Nathan Bahny as Papa Bear; Christyan Seay as Mama Bear; Hadley Qualls as Baby Bear; Elizabeth Hastings as the pianist; Thomas Keep, Dell Jesse and Chauncey Papenfuse as the Stage/Lighting Crew; all students in the 2023-24 HA Stagecraft Class as the Set Builders; and everyone who attended the shows, since performing art is communication and without an audience the show means nothing.

You might wonder why I didn't sing the role of Mama Bear, being a tenor myself and already knowing the part, having written it and also recorded it on the demo. A fair question. First of all, I've had what most consider a major performing career and didn't need to sing in GOLDIE for that reason. Second, we had in Chris Seay an excellent example of local talent and I wanted to see what he would bring to the role: composers may write the music down, but all those who take it back off the page do it differently, putting some of themselves into it, and that’s part of the magic of live theater. Also, there is a jembe obbligato for two-thirds of the show and no HA student stepped forward to play it, so I did. What I didn’t expect was to do that wearing a Lorax costume that my mom had built me to curl in during Plainfield Curling Club's “Dr. Sowss” Bonsqueal. (Long story there, not germaine at all.) All I can say is that it’s quite bearlike, sans oreilles, and Director Tami thought the kids would love it. (As usual she was right.) And in hindsight, my decision not to sing was fortuitous: I became the de facto costumer for the show except for the baseball uniform, resulting in greatly reduced sleep time that week, so there would have been very little energy left for me to sing and act. As a very famous country rock singer once observed, opera is hard.