Are you ready for Die Zauberflote? The opera's coming to Norwell

Opera, according to Pam Wolfe, is all around us.

It’s the music that plays in the background of many television commercials.

Sports broadcasts employ opera music to add drama to highlights and clips, and the opera was often referenced and parodied by The Three Stooges.

The Marx Brothers created a famous film “A Night at the Opera,” and “The Flight of the Valkyrie” by Wagner, was famously employed in Francis Ford Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now.”

A Norwell resident, Wolfe added, too, that opera is really not that much different from TV or movies. Most of the songs in an opera, after all, cover three topics: being in love, wanting to be in love or having been in love and wanting that feeling (or the person) back.

This weekend, Wolfe, who teaches music at Brandeis University in Waltham, will conduct in Norwell a production of “The Magic Flute” (Die Zauberflote), by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

The show will be held Sunday, Nov. 1, beginning at 3 p.m.

Though hosted in Norwell by the James Library & Center for the Arts, the opera will be performed next door, at First Parish Church, for there’s a larger performance hall there.

Oh and by the way, the opera will be sung in German.

Why should locals attend?

“Because it’s going to be good,” said Wolfe. “And it’s coming to them, and it’s not going to cost a million dollars.”

Wolfe has taught at Brandeis for 24 years, and the cast of “the Magic Flute” will include her current and former students. She said she chose “The Magic Flute” for the performance for a very simple reason: she had the material. During a visit to her department office at Brandeis one afternoon about a year ago, Wolfe said she found a stack of musical scores from the opera perched on a desk that department members use to unload materials they no longer need or want. Vocal scores can often cost $30 each, said Wolfe, so this was a great opportunity.

Score!

“The Magic Flute,” Wolfe said, is a very well known opera, and one of Mozart’s most celebrated.

“I think it’s good for all kinds of people,” she said. “It’s so famous that Bugs Bunny did a parody of it.”

“It’s a ring tone,” she added.

The storyline is very approachable, she said, and not as confusing (for opera newcomers) as other operas can sometimes be.

“This is a good introduction to opera,” she said. “Once you accept what the storyline is, it’s easy to let the music take over and you can enjoy it.”

The plot, she added, has clearly defined characters.

There’s a good guy, and a bad guy, and of course, there’s The Queen of the Night (she’s quite the character).

Another bonus: in “The Magic Flute,” and unlike in many other operas, everyone lives in the end.

This Wolfe’s background

Pam Wolfe said she’s been singing since a show she performed in when she was in the third grade. She enjoyed it then, and she still does today.

“Music’s been a constant for me,” said Wolfe. Though people come and go, she said “the music’s always been there, to listen to, to do.”

“Singing,” she added, “is a sport.”

After graduating from Marshfield High in 1966, Wolfe studied at Boston University and Boston Conservatory. She later taught at Salem State, before landing a one-year position at Brandeis, which has blossomed into a 24-year career.

In addition to directing “the Magic Flute,” Wolfe has also designed and created all the singers’ costumes for the performance. Working in the field of music, Wolfe said she usually creates a product (music) that can be heard, but not seen. Designing the costumes provided her with a creative outlet, in which her work is actually visible.

Wolfe lives in Norwell with her husband Lawrence, who plays in the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

An intermission will be held between acts. Following the show, attendees can talk to the performers in a question and answer session. Tickets cost $20 for the general public, $18 for seniors and $10 for students, and will benefit the James Library. First Parish Church is at 24 River St. in Norwell.

Good words to know (at an opera)

The following definitions were provided, more or less, by Pam Wolfe.

Aria- a big, whaling song in an opera, one that’s often a show-off piece for a singer.

Overture- A preview of an opera’s coming musical attractions. This is the first music played by an operatic orchestra at the start of the show.

Box prompter- A person who sits under the stage, facing the singers and provides them cues so they don’t forget their music.