A course aimed at students of the three levels of a comprehensive institute: 5-year-olds attending the nursery, primary school students, and secondary school students.
Implementation: from January to May; better if throughout the school year.
We started by listening to operas performed by students who had already participated in opera projects in previous school years, leading, through the guidance of the teacher and older student tutors, to choral renditions of the most famous arias from Gioachino Rossini’s Cinderella, a study of operas in general and the elements involved in staging one, to the realization of costumes and props, culminating with participation in a performance of the work organized by an association which deals with musical education and dissemination.
This process lends itself to further developments thanks to its interdisciplinary openness (Italian music and language, technology, figurative art), intercultural openness (how many versions of Cinderella are there in different cultures?), inclusive openness (each offering a younger student their own talent: knowing how to be, knowing how to do, knowing how to get others to do).
The construction of a Community of Practice, in which each individual has a significant role to play in achieving a large-scale joint project, encourages the construction of personal identity, responds to the primary need for recognition and membership of a peer group, and furthers the development of musical listening, performance and reading-writing skills, in parallel with the development of transversal skills which are predominantly social and metacognitive.
Materials needed
- CD player / MP3 player.
- If possible, also an IWB.
- Tuning fork.
- The voice of the teacher and tutors.
- A didactic reduction of the opera (see Further Details).
- Various teaching techniques to resolve and overcome any shortcomings in the musical skills of listening and production.
Human Resources
- Collaboration of the class/section teachers is fundamental, irreplaceable in the daily reinforcement of the learning acquired at the weekly workshops, and precious allies in the organizing of schedules and spaces
- Parents (for costumes and props).
- ATA staff (for surveillance and documentation).
- Older students to help younger ones.
Spaces
- Classroom-workshop laid out in a very simple way, free from furniture and distractions.
- Auditorium-hall, a large atrium.
- School theatre.
Timelines
One hour per week from January to May, groups with different numbers of students, which must be carefully organized (element of complexity and risk), in the different phases of implementing the project (see Presentation Slide).
The skills, goals and training objectives selected by the teacher for this experience are shown below.
Music education objectives
The students:
- Listen actively and consciously.
- Recognize the distinctive features of the sound, reproducing them with their voice and body.
- Come to know opera in an active form suitable for their developmental level.
- Can synchronize body movements and voice with a rhythmic/sound pulse and rhythmic cells.
- Can express themselves using the spoken and sung voice.
- Can perform opera arias in a choir.
- Are able to concentrate at the same time on the director’s gestures, their own performance, and listening to the overall sound.
- Can use gestures to direct the singing of a group of peers.
- Can sight-sing.
Interdisciplinary, transversal and citizenship training objectives
The students:
- Actively participate in the staging of an opera.
- Understand the words of the songs sung and enrich their vocabulary.
- Develop language skills (expressive and phono-articulatory) in the oral production of Italian.
- Develop a mnemonic capacity, attention, and concentration.
- Put their skills at the service of younger students (tutoring).
- Acquire awareness of their strengths (to be shared) and weaknesses (to be improved).
- Learn to work in a group, to collaborate, and to respect rules.
| Presentazione della buona pratica | Download |
| Una volta c'era un re (audio) | Download |
| O figlie amabili (audio) | Download |
| Testi dei brani tratti da Cenerentola di G. Rossini | Download |
| Cenerentola vien qua (audio) | Download |
| Scegli la sposa (audio) | Download |
| Zitto zitto (audio) | Download |
| Abbia sempre pronti in sala (audio) | Download |
| Questo è un nodo (audio) | Download |
| Il pranzo in ordine (audio) | Download |
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