Target Grade Levels: Grades 6-12

Program Dates/Times:

• Turandot – Final Dress Rehearsal is at 6:00 p.m. on February 18th; Interactive Videoconference to take place sometime the week before, time dependent on schedules of participating schools (Space for three classes, approximately 30 students each)

  L'enfant et les sortileges and Gianni Schicchi - Rehearsal is at 6:00 p.m. on April 22 nd; Interactive Videoconference to take place sometime the week before, time dependent on schedules of participating schools (Space for three classes, approximately 30 students each)

How to Participate in this Program: In order to participate in this project, your school must:

• Be a MAGPI Member
• Have H.323 videoconferencing capabilities (to participate in the pre-opera videoconference program)
• Have one class (approximately 30 students) travel to view the opera you sign-up for at the Academy of Music
• Have one teacher attend a professional development program at the Academy of Music approximately 4-6 weeks before the opera your students attend

Description:

MAGPI is excited to announce a new pilot project extension of the Sounds of Learning program with the Opera Company of Philadelphia! The Opera Company has graciously set aside space for six  high school and/or middle school classes (approximately 30 students in each class) from MAGPI’s community to attend the final dress rehearsals of one of their performances this season. In addition to viewing the final dress from the seats in the Academy of Music, students will be able to take part in a special pre-performance interactive videoconference program with musicians and artists from the Opera company staff before they travel to Philadelphia for the performance. What an exciting way to immerse your students in the arts!

Participating teachers will take part in a the Opera Company’s Sounds of Learning professional development seminar, which will provide educators with ample suggestions for integrating the opera experience across a broad base of subject areas. Teachers will also receive curriculum materials - - all free of charge!

We have space for MAGPI schools in the following programs:

Turandot – Rehearsal is at 6:00 p.m. on February 18 th; Interactive Videoconference to take place sometime the week before, time dependent on schedules of participating schools (Space for three classes, approximately 30 students each)

L'enfant et les sortileges and Gianni Schicchi - Rehearsal is at 6:00 p.m. on April 22 nd; Interactive Videoconference to take place sometime the week before, time dependent on schedules of participating schools (Space for three classes, approximately 30 students each)

ABOUT THE SOUNDS OF LEARNING PROGRAM

Registration is now open for the 2008-2009 Opera Company of Philadelphia Sounds of Learning program. This free program has brought over 125,000 students to the historic Academy of Music to experience the magic of opera since 1991.  Created by Dr. Dennis W. Creedon,   Sounds of Learning is an arts-integrated program that uses an opera's libretto to teach lessons across the curriculum from language arts, social studies, math and science, to music, foreign language, and more. All lessons in the provided student workbook are tied to Pennsylvania State Standards.

Participating teachers attend a training session six to eight weeks before the final dress rehearsal of the opera that they will see. All educational materials will be distributed at the meeting including an 80 page student workbook for each student attending the opera, a CD-Rom of additional research material and classroom lessons, and an audio CD of excerpts to help prepare your students.

Sounds of Learning is open to grades 5-12 only. The 2008-2009 Season is highlighted by four operas that are sure to captivate middle and high school students alike. Each opera features projected English translations above the stage.  For dates and times, more information, or to enroll or on this award-winning program, visit the Opera Company online at  http://www.operaphila.org/community/reservation-form.shtml.

The Season opens in October with Ludwig van Beethoven's Fidelio, a study of repression, political internment and freedom. Beethoven's only opera takes place in a prison near Seville, Spain in the 18th century. When her husband Florestan is wrongfully imprisoned by his political enemy, faithful wife Leonore daringly disguises herself as a young man (Fidelio) in order to pursue justice and her true love's freedom. Internationally-renowned artist Jun Kaneko designs a fascinating new production. Potential Calendar Conflict: Yom Kippur beings at sundown on this date.

The Opera Company brings back its colorful production of Gioacchino Rossini's The Italian Girl in Algiers  in November. Algerian ruler Mustafa wants the beautiful Italian Isabella, to join his harem. She is shipwrecked and searching for her missing lover, Lindoro. Rossini's sparkling comedy will be sure to delight students with its swinging elephants, Technicolor sets and dizzying Rossini melodies.

The passion of Giacomo Puccini's final opera Turandot heats up February in this stunning new OCP production. In the Imperial Palace in Peking, a beautiful Mandarin princess with an icy heart challenges her suitors to win her hand by answering three mystifying riddles. If they answer incorrectly, they lose their life. One suitor manages to answer the riddles correctly and melt the ice around her heart. This opera features the popular tenor aria "Nessun Dorma".

The main stage Season ends the unique comedic double bill of Maurice Ravel's L'enfant et les sortileges and Puccini's Gianni Schicchi which proves that not only youngsters are prone to acting up! First, an ill-behaved child meets a rude awakening when the inanimate objects in his nursery and garden come to life and turn on him in Ravel's opera. Then, when an aged relative passes away in Gianni Schicchi, his family quarrels over his fortune. This pairing is perfect for first time opera goers. Gianni Schicchi features the famous aria "O mio babbino caro".

ABOUT THE OPERA COMPANY OF PHILADELPHIA

The Opera Company of Philadelphia presents four mainstage productions at the Academy of Music each season, and now also in a contemporary new home at the Kimmel Center’s intimate Perelman Theater, plus collaborative presentations with other institutions as well as award-winning education and community outreach programs. Formed in 1975, the Opera Company of Philadelphia has always been and remains committed to delivering outstanding productions of traditional and new repertoire.

Through its in-house Production Center, established in 1993, the Opera Company builds new and innovative productions—including last season’s larger-than-life Rigoletto—in its facility located at the Arsenal Business center in the Tacony section of Philadelphia. In addition to creating new productions, the Opera Company of Philadelphia searches all over the world to bring the best of the international opera scene here to Philadelphia. The imaginative production of Cinderella in Novermber 2006 by the acclaimed Italian team of director Davide Livermore and set and costume designer Santi Centineo, had The Philadelphia Inquirer lauding it as “easily among OCP’s most theatrically sophisticated accomplishments.”

Committed to ensuring opera’s future through both artistic innovation and audience development, the Opera Company is devoted to creating educational programs geared to introducing the rich heritage of opera to the curriculum of public and private schools, as well as sponsoring programs that appeal to both longtime and new opera audiences. The Company’s award-winning Sounds of Learning™ program, which has brought opera to more than 120,000 area students, is currently in its 17th season. This literacy-based program uses opera libretti as a literacy tool and as a starting point for the integration of visual and performing arts into the framework of a core curriculum. The Sounds of Learning™ program continues to grow and bring opera to more and more students each year. This last season brought an additional 23 schools to the program and increased the number of students by 35%. In February 2007, OCP reached an even broader audience with Hip H’Opera, a program that celebrated the urban experience within a classical music setting, in collaboration with the Art Sanctuary’s North Stars after-school program and the New Freedom Theatre’s Performing Arts Training Program. Hip H’Opera fused the hip-hop poems of students from the North Stars program with the music of classically trained area composers in an event that had over 800 attendees and substantial television coverage.