EDUCATION MATERIALS
We encourage teachers to use these materials with students in their classrooms before and after watching The Secret River.
OPERA on SITE
music by Stella Sung
libretto by Mark Campbell
based on the book The Secret River written by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon
Friday | March 6, 2026 at 7:30 p.m.
Saturday | March 7, 2026 at 7:30 p.m.
THE GROVE STAGE
at Mead Botanical Garden
Sung in English with no supertitles. Approximate run time of seventy minutes with no intermission.
Age advisory: G
ACTIVITIES
ABOUT THE OPERA
For more information on educational programs surrounding The Secret River, please email education director Sarah Purser at spurser@operaorlando.org.
Request access to The Secret River link and materials HERE.
Opera Orlando presents The Secret River - an opera for all audiences - based on the book by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. Follow the journey of young Calpurnia through the backwoods of Central Florida and find the goodness within us all.
CAST
CREATIVE TEAM
“A secret river,
Flows through us all,
Young and old,
Big and small.”
The commissioning of Stella C.Y. Sung for The Secret River (a new opera for all audiences based on the book by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings) received funding from OPERA America’s Opera Grants for Female Composers program, supported by the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation.
Based on the book THE SECRET RIVER by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon
Text copyright © 1955 by Charles Scribner’s Sons
Text copyright renewed © 1983 by John Sundeman, Trustee of the Norton Baskin
Literary Trust Illustrations copyright © 2011 by Leo and Diane Dillon
Adapted for the stage by permission of Atheneum Books For Young Readers, an Imprint of Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing Division. All rights reserved.