Sigma Alpha Iota

DISTINGUISHED MEMBERS PUBLISHED Music! Words! Opera! By Roger Ames and Clifford Brooks National Arts Associates "The exercise of judgment in the making of artistic images or in their appreciation depends upon the ability to cope with ambiguity, to experience nuance, and to weigh … tradeoffs among alternate courses of action. These skills represent not only the mind operating in its finest hour, but are precisely the skills that characterize our most complex adult life tasks." — Elliot W. Eisner T he Music! Words! Opera! series published by GIA in collaboration with OPERA America and authored by National Arts Associates Roger Ames and Clifford Brooks is about something very basic: the human need to tell stories. No matter how old we are, we all rely to some extent on our ability to spin tales. It is one of the ways that we create our worlds each day. We fashion heroes. We find our villains. We make up the episodes that explain our agonies, our delights, our hungers, our discoveries, our beliefs. Where facts fail to provide answers, we let our imaginations fill things in. But just as important, certainly, is our capacity to enter into other people's stories. With the help of these storytellers' imaginations, we can meet intriguing characters and experience incredible journeys that transport us to other worlds and times. We discover that — when the story is a good one — we care, we hope, we fear, and we triumph. Through these experiences, we learn about ourselves, other people, and the world in which we live. Is this not the experience of musical theatre and opera? Opera is a dramatic and musical way to tell a story. Music adds a dimension of feeling by helping to express the atmosphere of the scene, the moods of the characters, and the emotional impact of the events; the story intensifies, along with the related feelings. The narrative is raised to new heights of expressiveness and, in doing so, creates a dynamic art form. The Music! Words! Opera! series introduces teachers and students to opera as something that can be understood and enjoyed by everyone. Because it is multimedia, opera invites students to explore several of the basic ways humans communicate — through words, music, dramatic expression, and visual arts. As a form of human expression, opera challenges students to reach beyond speaking and writing, and to think more 18 comprehensively about their own ability to express and to communicate. Music, words, and drama work together to form a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts: an opera. In the same way, knowledge and creativity combine to form a whole greater than the sum of those parts: a learned and well-rounded student. The Music! Words! Opera! series balances fact learning with creativity; young people learn to gather and use information effectively, while also being inspired to think creatively as they approach all facets of their education. The authors firmly believe that every person has the capability to be creative and that all students deserve to use that capability constructively. Teachers are vital links between content knowledge and the creative process of their students. By presenting teachers with the materials in this series, the authors hope to open another door to inspire creative and critical thinking. Opera and Learning Opera offers a unique opportunity for learning in the classroom. It comprises literature and theater, making it possible to fit directly into reading /language arts and theater curricula. It includes both instrumental and vocal music, relating directly to music curricula. Dance and design are integral to the art form, providing natural opportunities to relate to movement and visual arts curricula. In addition, opera deals with the ways people live, think, and feel, providing a direct correlation to the humanities and social studies curricula. Opera can be an extraordinary tool for blending learning across multiple disciplines, and it can help teachers and students cut through the fragmented nature of compartmentalized learning in secondary schools. Opera can provide a way for teachers and learners to break through the limitations and boundaries of the standard curriculum to make new discoveries about life, about themselves, and about the value of humankind's accumulated cultural accomplishments. Opera, and all of the arts, are a ready and appealing mechanism for tying disciplines together in compelling ways that spark interest and invite participation, drawing students into the learning process. These are essential and fundamental connections that can enliven learning on many different fronts. Because opera offers multiple entry points into the learning styles of all students, it also PAN PIPESSUMMER 2012 sai-national.org provides an ideal opportunity to demonstrate the effectiveness of authentic assessment, as well as the efficacy of traditional methods of student evaluation. Opera is, in short, a naturally interdisciplinary art form that relates directly to the standard school learning framework. In one of the first brochures printed to advertise Music! Words! Opera! (M!W!O!) in the early 1990s, David Gockley, then general director of Houston Grand Opera, stated the following: The textbook project [M!W!O!] represents a major change in policy. This is the first time we have asked schools what we can do for them. We are going about this with a real sense of service. The usual way has been to expect education to recognize our greatness and come to our door. Now we're saying, 'Here is the way our resources can be used in your classroom, week to week.' It all began about 1980, when Marthalie Furber, newly appointed education director of OPERA America, conducted an environmental scan to discern what was going on in opera education throughout the country. Many of us already involved in company education departments knew of "create an opera" projects in different opera companies. Exciting things were happening in such locales as the Berkshires, San Diego, Seattle, Tulsa, and Tucson. Carroll Reinhart, a pioneer in the field of contemporary music education, had observed the work of a colleague in San Diego and began building from a number of creative processes to develop a methodology for children to create their own pieces of musical theater. At the same time as the creative process component was being analyzed, other opera companies were heavily engaged in in-depth study of great works as they related to the K-12 curriculum. National Arts Associate Clifford J. Brooks, then Education Director of The Opera Company of Boston, was working with schools in Natick, Boston, and Lexington, MA, to integrate such operas as Faust, Madama Butterfly and Hansel and Gretel into their daily instructional strategies. Realizing that both the creative process and the study of great works were intimately bound together and could form the basis of an innovative curriculum where content and process were equally balanced, a number of visionary opera educators set out to develop a collaborative

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