Schools and Student Learning

Workshops for Primary and Secondary Students

Why Opera?

Workshops are an exciting way for students to immerse themselves in the world of opera.

Opera to many young people can seem inaccessible, elite, old-fashioned and so far away from their own experience of growing up in Australia. Our mission is to smash that stereotype and look at how music, song, and drama can represent and deepen our understanding of the world we live in.

Through participatory sessions we invite students to consider ‘what can opera teach us in 21st-century Australia?'. Through creativity, song, music and storytelling we look at what opera does best: share big ideas, evoke big emotions, and tell powerful stories.

What happens in a workshop

Workshops can be customised to align with your curriculum in music, drama, languages, history and civics as well as your students' abilities, experiences, and interests.

In these workshops students will:

  • Be introduced to the key elements of opera: Music, Voice, Drama, text and visual storytelling.
  • Explore how voice and music can express character, convey story, character, time, place and scene.
  • Experiment with drama, music, art, and costume.
  • Analyse how opera themes reflect everyday life and modern-day issues.
  • Creating atmosphere, time, and place through music, projection, costume space, composition.
  • Create original music and visual scores

Topics

Some possible workshop topics you might explore

Primary Students

Basically Opera – The 101 of all things opera.

This workshop is good place to start to introduce the elements of opera and what goes into making one: The combination of music, singing, drama, staging and costume play.

The Magical World of Mozart

Explore the world of adventure quests, Queens, princesses, princes and dragons in Mozart’s The Magic Flute.

Sing your story

Create an original song story that draws on your experience growing up as a young person in Australia.

Secondary Students

Basically Opera – The 101 of all things opera.

This workshop is good place to start to introduce the elements of opera and what goes into making one: The combination of music, singing, drama, emotion, setting and staging.

Opera and other myths

How the Myth of Orpheus and Eurydice is the basis of so many stories, from the opera Orpheus to hit musical Hadestown, Moulin Rouge and the Can – Can.

The Bohemians

Bohemians, Hipsters and Yuccies modern adaptations of operas – La Bohème and Rent the musical (and who cares?).

Archetypes and Stereotypes

Opera is driven by character tropes seen in story – Lovers, villains, archetypes and nemeses. In opera these characters portray love, hope, jealousy and rage with voice types and music used to describe time, place and character.

Sing your story

Create an original song story that draws on your experience of culture and growing up as a young person in Australia.

Excursion to The Opera Centre

See what goes into making an opera by going behind the scenes at The Opera Centre Surry Hills. For the first half of the excursion students will see how costume, wardrobe, set, props, singers and artists and how they come together to create a professional production. Then spend some time with an OA Teaching Artist with a drama and music workshop in one of Opera Australia’s rehearsal rooms.

Workshop details

Workshops are flexible and can be tailored to your existing curriculum in music and drama, student’s abilities, experience and interests

Workshop duration:

2 hrs through to full day or as arranged

Age range:

Primary (recommended age 8+ - Stage 2/3)
Secondary (Stage 4/5)
HSC / VCE focus are available

Group size:

Up to 30 students

Where:

At your school or at The Opera Centre Surry Hills

Space requirements:

School Hall or large open room (able to be darkened if possible)

Cost:

$600 per workshop

BOOK A WORKSHOP