Why Opera Education

1
Why Opera Education?
PROVISIONAL REPORT FROM WORKING GROUP 3
Dr Valerie Tee, Professor Peter Tomlinson, Ann
Laenen, Katie Tearle, Maria Larsdotter
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Number of Opera Companies by Country
Questionnaire
3
The Opera Companies

• The opera companies within RESEO included a full
  range of sizes of opera houses, touring
  companies, festival and youth companies.
• Differences
• the number of productions
• the number of new operas
• the total number of performances during a typical
  year
• the number of employees
• number of auditorium
• the size of the various auditoriums

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The Education Departments
Similarities (80 )

• Received public funding
• Managed their own budget
• Managed personnel
• Worked with free lance artists as well as their
  own opera house artists
• Worked with children and teachers
• Worked collaboratively with Universities
• Created productions
• Commissioned work from artists principally from
  composers and librettists
• Created workshops principally with school
  children of all ages
• Created materials principally for teachers
• Presented pre- performance talks
• Created study days
• Organised guided tours around the opera houses

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Sample

• It was decided that only a pilot study was
  possible in the available time.
• The interviews would be conducted in the language
  of the interviewees in order to gain the richest
  answers possible.
• The sample of opera companies to be interviewed
  would be determined by
• 1. the language expertise of the WG3 core
  members
• 2. the time available during March to carry out
  the interviews
• 3. a range of European countries
• This sampling method was not truly systematic but
  gave us a sample of 21 interviewees located in
  Belgium, Sweden, Norway, Italy, Germany and
  France.

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The Interview Sample
Why opera education?'

• Company Number of interviewees
• As.Li.Co 2
• Teatro Regio 1
• Vlaamse Opera 2
• Théâtre du Châtelet 3
• Göteborgsoperan 2
• Den Norske Opera 2
• Welsh National Opera 2
• Glyndebourne 1
• Bayerische Staatsoper 1 (joint interview)
• Theater am Gartenplatz 1
• Theater Schule 1
• La Monnaie 3
• TOTAL SAMPLE 21

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Provisional Report

• This 'Why Opera Education?' study is not complete
  therefore the specific interview agenda structure
  will not be identified as further interviews may
  be carried out in the future
• This is not an analytical study but an
  impressionistic, highly provisional, response.
• A broad impression will be given of the aspects
  that appear across the interview responses
• Some of the similarity and variation in the
  interviewees' responses across the sample will be
  reported.
• Quotations and summary statements will be used to
  illustrate this impressionistic presentation.

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IdentifiedThemes

• 1. To convey the passion and emotion of opera
• 2. To maintain opera heritage as well as develop
  the art form
• 3. To develop opera company artists
• 4. To link 'education' to other parts of an opera
  company
• 5. The school curriculum - a task for an opera
  company?
• To meet a civic responsibility - funding.
• To promote the image of opera
• To widen the audience
• To educate the audience
• To introduce new ways of working
• To explore different performance venues
• The broader cultural dimension

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Conveying Passion and Emotion
Responses

• opera education is a means to pass on the magic
  of opera
• to pass on our passion for the art form, to be
  provocative, involving and having emotional
  content
• to deepen and extend the inspiration, excitement
  and knowledge of the opera going audience
• to draw the existing audience deeper and deeper
  into the fascinations of opera
• to give the young audience a beautiful emotional
  experience so they might want to experience it
  again
• to give the taste and emotion of opera to young
  people
• to convince young people that opera is fun
• to convince people that opera is an absolutely
  unmissable part of our emotion, psychology and
  our state of mind.
• to keep the festive feel to opera
• to tell the story of opera in the country that
  lives on the beats of opera

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Opera Heritage v Development
Heritage Responses

• to prevent the disappearance of the cultural
  heritage of opera
• to bring as many people of all ages and social
  categories into contact with our artistic
  heritage
• to link society and heritage
• it is important to get pieces that work rather
  than unique works
• to bring opera into the life of young people as
  it was in the past
• the productions that the audience see as
  important are not those that we see as important

Development Responses

• guiding the existing audience to less well known
  works
• we should be more modern and contemporary
• to re-vitalise opera so that it doesnt become a
  museum piece
• bring opera closer to the world of young people
• presenting mixed programmes such as West Side
  Story to attract a different audience

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Artists

• Artists need to acknowledge the importance of
  education work
• They are appropriate and motivated for the
  education work.
• They are chosen carefully
• They are trained to work in education
• We want artists with teaching experience not
  teachers with artistic experience
• Free-lance artists should work alongside
  colleagues within the house
• If you don't involve the company members then
  the education department has nothing to do with
  the company
• We need to have a small group of well trained
  professionals to communicate opera to the wider
  world dynamically
• However, there is also the view that
• it is not the job of the education department to
  train people
• it is up to the artists themselves whether they
  get involved in education work
• The impact of this work on the artists is also
  considered
• 'Artists who never get the chance to be soloists
  can work in small scale ensembles
• and be soloists - it really challenges artists
  and then they accept more challenges for
• the main stage.'

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Education within the company

• Positive statements
• Our aim is to unite education within the core
  philosophy, mission and activity of the opera
  company
• good collaborations within the house
• it raises the profile of the House
• positive influence on the House
• influences the image of opera
• development of personnel in the company
• Negative statements
• Staff don't know what we're doing
• Setting up the education department was left to
  the end
• no funding for an education department

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School Curriculum - our task?

• 'We can co-exist with the formal education
  system, we can complement it, work with it,
  collaborate with it, support it, but not replace
  it.
• Yes - because
• teachers lack musical training
• we fill the gaps in music education
• music and theatre education is weak
• schools do not have the means or resources
• the deterioration of cultural education
• teachers couldn't possibly do on their own
• No - because
• formal education and opera should keep to their
  own side of the line the educational world
  should do its job and the artistic world hers
• we converge with the needs of the education
  system but this does not mean taking over music
  lessons

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Widening the Audience

• I'm less interested in the existing audience.
  They come no matter what. The others outside
  interest me the most. The others outside interest
  me the most. To catch their attention, to give
  them the chance to discover Opera, that is the
  challenge, that is what gives me energy.
• To give young people the opportunity to discover
  and enjoy opera
• To enable young people to experience live opera
  rather than recorded performances
• To provide reduced price tickets for young people
• To reduce prejudice to young people attending -
  tolerance to their behaviour.
• To reduce the financial and psychological
  thresholds
• To make Opera more accessible to groups that
  normally wouldnt enter the house.
• To bring down the barriers for them so that they
  feel welcome.
• To establish careful and detailed relationships
  within communities and understand how best these
  communities can be served by an Opera Company.
• To offer reduction cards for 18 - 24 year-old
  students, who attended projects when at school.
  (6700 buy tickets with this card each year.)

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Image of Opera

• Opera is enormous people in Viking helmets
  singing Shakespeare in Latin. It is our job to
  dispel this image!
• To take away prejudices that exist around Opera
  through ignorance.
• To show young people that opera is not reserved
  for an elite.
• To lower barriers through the way repertoire is
  presented
• To bring opera closer to the youngsters world
  through the popular repertoire.
• Opera cant be left behind after cinema theatre
  and internet.
• Opera costs a lot of money
• This art form has a very traditional image to the
  outside world.
• The audience expects huge scenery, classical
  gestures, great names but that is not what we
  want to offer.
• The image of opera stays in the middle of the
  20th century in a couple of years we wont have
  an audience anymore.
• Opera still has this halo over it, it is for the
  rich and elite.
• It is a highly specialised, intellectual and
  sophisticated art form.

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Civic Responsibility

• We have a civic responsibility. Two thirds of our
  funding comes from the state and this should not
  pay just for those who like to go to opera
• Government funding is very high so the opera
  company has a responsibility to society
• We must communicate a developed image of the
  opera company to politicians and decision makers
  whilst keeping some independence from the
  ministries
• Making people feel happy about public funding of
  opera
• Education work should be a statutory commission
  for a cultural institution
• To establish careful and detailed relationships
  within communities and understand how best these
  communities can be served by an Opera Company.

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Educating the Audience

• To create an audience that thinks more, that
  demands more, has an appetite for discovery and
  arrives ready to be surprised.
• To enhance and develop the enjoyment, interest
  and understanding of opera
• To attract attention to the art form again
• To help the audience to understand the
  conventions of opera
• To help teachers who are culturally illiterate
• To lead the whole audience into new works
• To show the workings or workings of the opera
  company to a potential audience e.g. through
  guided tours
• To give pre/post performance talks, study
  opportunities, publications, Opera Bites and
  Insight Days.
• To prepare the ushers to enable them to answer
  questions on the opera
• To provide introductory projects for our
  sponsors.
• To develop this audience to move in a new
  direction to train them.
• To guide the audience to attend lesser known
  works.

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New Ways of Working

•  
• Opera education is not just about developing
  audiences but weve got to develop the art form
  because it is a living art form and we cant just
  have everyone doing La Boheme every year. It
  needs to be fed with new works and new ideas.
•  
•                      To promote and develop the
  evolution of this living art form.
•                      To develop the creativity
  of the ensemble (orchestra, chorus etc.)
•                      To make this opera company
  look out rather than just looking in.
•                      To work on a future
  perspectives for the arts not just opera.
•                      To programme works of high
  quality for young people.
•                      To work with modern themes
  with young students.
•                      Modern technologies can
  really work to excite and inspire educational
  processes e.g. CD, DVD, Internet and
  Digital Technologies.
•                      An opportunity to
  demonstrate through use of modern technologies
  that Opera is a modern art form.
•                      We commission 2/3 works per
  year for young people. 
• What is new for one opera company may have been
  established in another for many years.
• To me an Opera House should above all be a place
  for creations.

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Venues

• Main Stage
•          To take away the fear of entering
  intimidating 19th century opera house buildings
  so that everyone feels welcome.
•          To develop strong links between the art
  form, its audience and its venue.
•          To encourage people who have
  participated in non-main scale projects to come
  to the opera house
•          To integrate education completely into
  the work of the company, in a way that it makes
  it indistinguishable from a performance on the
  main stage.
• Other venues
•          To get opera into a dialogue with the
  world that surrounds it, by opening doors and
  windows and by looking for ways to get out of the
  Opera House into the community.
•           To be able to do all kinds of
  experiments in the non-main scale part of the
  company.
•          To work on stages that are not too big
  so that the human dimension does not disappear
  and there is room for experimentation
•          To work in un-operatic settings to
  reach the community (prisons, elderly homes,
  schools, railway stations)
•          To perform small creative projects in
  the foyer.
•          To bring the regular audience to
  non-main scale performances.
•  
•  

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The Broader Cultural Dimension

•  
• Culture simply has a role to play against the
  bitterness and sourness aspects that constantly
  increase within society.
•          To give young people a cultural
  experience.
•          Opera should be part of a broader
  cultural picture.
•          To give creative opportunities to the
  community.
•          To make people aware of what is going
  on in cultural venues.
•          To become more human and less
  disconnected from culture.
•          To communicate between artists, art
  forms and people.
•          To have a wider cultural vocation.
•          Ideally opera would be like
  citizenship, a cultural development programme
•          To use our external expertise to
  provide cultural training.
•          There should be a partnership between
  culture and education.
•          Because opera is so broad,
  multi-faceted and multi- disciplinary, we can be
  broader and deeper than any other arts
  organisation.
•          We have to understand what our
  communities need through collaboration and
  discussion.
•          Experiences of culture and live
  performances offer value to society.
•