State Standards

Kansas

  • Music
    • 6I21
    • 8I21
    • 9I31
    • 9I33
  • Theatre
    • 6.B.1.1

Missouri

  • Fine Arts
    • AP1B4-5
    • AP1B6-8
    • HC1A4
    • HC1C6-8

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Lesson 13: What Is an Opera?

Background

Many students who attend John Brown may have little experience with opera, and therefore may think that opera is not meant for them or is something they cannot understand. As John Brown shows, opera is accessible to everyone, and is an art form everyone can enjoy and understand.

This lesson and the students' attendance at John Brown show that elements of opera appear in the performance arts with which they are already familiar, and that opera is very similar to types of performances they enjoy. In this lesson students work together using their own organizing skills to determine how opera is similar to and different from other performance arts.

Objectives

Upon completion of the lesson, students will be able to:

  1. Identify opera as a performance where the story is told through music and acting;
  2. Compare and contrast opera and its characteristics with music concerts, stage plays, movies, television and real life.

Materials

Board or flip chart(s)
Markers
Note cards
Pads of paper
Pens/pencils/crayons

Internet sites for Extension activity
Opera San Jose Study Guide:
http://www.operasj.org/WIOstudyguide0708.pdf

Wikipedia Opera Entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opera

Arts Central Guide:
http://www.artscentral.co.uk/DisplayPage.asp?pageid=7592

Time

1 class period prior to viewing the opera
10 minutes after students attend the opera

Procedure

  1. Write the word, "Opera" on the board. Ask the students what the word means.

    Write responses. As suggestions coalesce around musical theatrical productions (with whatever other features and characteristics - be prepared for large horned women and boring long choruses in foreign languages, among other descriptions), ask what other types of musical or theatrical productions there are.

    Possible answers may include "stage plays," "musicals," "movies," "music concerts," "shows on television," "church choirs," "dance recitals," "singing in the shower," or other examples. Write them on the board or have each student who answers write them on the board. Include "opera" among them.

  2. Ask the students what characteristics these different types of musical or theatre productions have. Your prompts or student answers could include such concepts as costumes, lighting, singing, movement, and musical instruments. Additional possibilities are theatres, audiences, a conductor, live or not live, spoken or all-sung or both.

  3. Have each student think about one type of musical or theatre performance and to list the characteristics it has. What do they see and hear in a performance? Give the students 5 minutes to write their responses on a sheet of chart paper and have them post their sheets on the board or walls when they are done.

  4. Break the class into groups of about six students each. Tell the students you would like them to come up with a scheme to organize the theatrical production types and elements so that they will be able to show and report which production types contain which elements and how they are related to each other. Each group is to use a minimum of five types of theatre or musical productions, including opera, and come up with ways that they are similar or different. Tell them they have 15 minutes to do this. (Prompts/possibilities may include charts, lists, cross-tabs, pictures or diagrams.) You may want to predetermine what materials to use based on what you have available and what works best for you and your students.

    Have each group report out, showing how they have come up with a solution to the problem.

  5. Before the end of the class period and before going to the opera, return to the question of "What is an opera?" Say that you would like the students to answer the question when they return based on their experience at the performance, considering the discussions and ideas the groups have come up with when talking about theatre and other performances. When they return, you would like each group to think about where opera falls in the organizational charts/lists they created. Does their experience confirm what they thought or does it change where opera should be?

    An alternative would be to ask for a few volunteers to serve as class researchers to investigate the questions at the opera and report back to the class after the performance.

Following the opera performance:

  1. After the opera, have the groups report back. They will have seen that John Brown contained live performances of a story told through singing and music (with minimal spoken words), using costumes, lighting, dance/movement, sound, the stage, and (perhaps) the audience to complete the art work. A brief discussion can place opera among the other music/theatrical production types they have considered.

Extension

More advanced students can research opera types, more-specific characteristics of opera (usual singing roles), or Lyric Opera of Kansas City in building their understanding of how opera fits among the other performance art types. Resources can be found in the Materials list.

Younger students forego the group session and all be given the assignment of looking for the various characteristics of music/theatre productions when they see John Brown. In a period after the performance students can share what they saw and build a consensus on what the definition of opera is based on their observation.

Essay Contest

Encourage your students to participate in the Lyric Opera of Kansas City Essay Contest. You can find more about it by visiting www.kcopera.org/About/johnbrowneducation/essay.

Lesson created by Martha A. Henry and Keith S. Murray, M.A. Henry Consulting, LLC.