Perhaps it was an advertising stunt at its heart — but it did have a heart.
Sacla', an Italy-based maker of pesto and pasta sauces that distributes its products in the U.K. and elsewhere in Europe, put together a surprise opera performance at Great Missenden School in Buckinghamshire, a county to the northwest of Greater London. The lunch and the performance both prove to be quite a treat.
As the children sit down to their midday meal, a pepper-dispensing chef wanders amongst the tables while two servers — colloquially known as "lunch ladies" in North America, "dinner ladies" in Britain — dish out the school meals, a tasty looking pesto-pasta offering, provided by underwriters Sacla'.
Unbeknownst to the school kids, the rather gruff-looking chef is none other than tenor Gareth Daffyd Morris, and the two servers are mezzo-soprano Louisa Barry and soprano Olivia Safe.
With all the children seated and the meal clearly underway, the three singers break into an operatic medley consisting of "La Donna è Mobile" from Verdi's Rigoletto, Figaro's Aria from Rossini's The Barber Of Seville, "Libiamo" from Verdi's La Traviata, and "Nessun Dorma" from Giacomo Puccini's Turandot.
The kids' reactions to the singing adds to the magic of the moment — although the intensity of the professional singers' voices in the enclosed space of a school dining hall evidently proves a bit much for a few of the youngsters' ears.
With all the commotion going on in the school lunchroom, a police officer has a look in to see what's going on … or perhaps it's really baritone Thomas Stoddart in a clever disguise?
Watch it all unfold in the video below:
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