Just when you thought you couldn't afford any more classical music tickets for a loooong time, the Rainier Family Opera steps up to the pitch again for three evenings of opera that's not only affordable but enjoyable for kids, families and non-opera-goers as well.

The Rainier Opera started out a year ago as a way of giving local opera singers more stage time plus making opera accessible for both their young families and everyone else's. Since then, the RO has staged several concerts of concertized, semi-costumed arias and scenes, but they don't dumb it down. There are opera faves like the Habanera from "Carmen," and then there's opera you've probably never heard before, like Aaron Copland's "The Tender Land."

Huh?

Yep, in the early 1950s Copland was inspired to break away from instrumental music by those aching, bleak-eyed photos of Walker Evans of rural America in the Depression. He wrote "A Tender Land" for NBC TV, a musical portrait of the tough life farming in the Midwest farming during the 1930s. Says RO publicist Dana Kehr: "With themes of harvest, work, love, trust and family, this opera addresses many topics relevant to our modern circumstances."

Six members of RO will sing scenes from "A Tender Land" tomorrow night in the Tacoma Public Library Main Branch's Olympic Room. The free concert is part of a series of events surrounding the Tacoma Reads program, which this time involves Barbara Kingsolver's excellent eating-and-farming-locally book, "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle." The arias will be rounded out by other American songs about food, farms and animals.

Then, on Friday in Tacoma and Saturday in Puyallup, the RO singers will include the Copland in a concert of music from "Carmen" and "La Boheme," two of the best-loved and most romantic operas ever. Soloists include performers seen regularly in Tacoma Opera and other local companies: Nathan Barnes, Ryan Christopher Bede, Grant Drees, Erin Guinup, Katie Hochman, Dave Holden, Laura Loge, Holly Kara Mesarch, Marci Morrell, Greg Sojka, Ainsley Soutiere, Amelia Stagno, and Denes van Parys, plus children from the Tahoma Choirs. There'll also be educational explanations of the operas.

Rainer Opera performance times:

7 p.m. Tuesday: "The Tender Land and Other Songs of Farms and Food." Free. Olympic Room, Main Library
1102 Tacoma Avenue South, Tacoma.
7 p.m. Friday: "Selections from "Carmen" and others..." Suggested donation $10, $25 families. First Lutheran Church, 524 S. I St, Tacoma.
7 p.m. Saturday: "Selections from "Carmen" and others..." Suggested donation $10, $25 families. Puyallup High School auditorium,105 7th St SW, Puyallup.
Information: rainierfamilyopera.blogspot.com/