This morning travelling home from Sydney (Australia), I was listening to the ABC Radio National's Bush Telegraph and their story about .... "Opera is normally associated with expensive tickets, overdressed patrons and foreign languages.
So when you give a group of teenagers 15 hours and a bunch of pens and paper, the last thing you'd expect is for them to write and compose their own opera.
About 80 teenagers in regional Victoria were given exactly that task, staging their own modern classic.
In this report: Murray Dahm, Project director of Wot Opera, Opera Australia" explains the project!
"WotOpera is an opera education initiative that provides secondary students from participating schools with the opportunity of creating an original opera and being involved in all aspects of its creation from conception through to performance. In 2010 the program will expand to include Bendigo, Sydney and Launceston. Twenty students from each school will participate in; character development, plot creation, writing the libretto, composing the music, casting, painting the backdrop, and performance." (Source: website)
What a great WebQuest this could be!!! And yes students can based their Opera on a TV Soap Opera but to date with this program, students have come up with interesting, varied and real life scenarios!
Teachers - don't leave it up to Opera Australia - have a go at creating a WebQuest based on the premise of Wot Opera and send it into Opera Australia! They would love a quality educational resource! This will also expand the program to include your students and school instead of leaving it to the select few!!!
Resources:
Introduce children and teenagers to Opera - this link contains a big listing of different Operas to introduce students to through DVDs.
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