This article places in historical context the three operas written by Alan Ridout for the choir of Canterbury Cathedral during the 1960s. Analysis of these works and their gestation is presented as a microcosm representing wider developments in music education since then. The analysis weaves together personal recollections, authenticated through…

The study focuses on the preservation and transmission of Gannan Tea Picking Opera knowledge after the Cultural Revolution in 1949 using qualitative research methods such as interviews and observations with seven key informants. The following findings were obtained, which can be divided into three distinct periods: The tortuous development phase…

Recent years have witnessed significant growth of interest in science-art integration in schools as an approach to creative teaching and learning. This conceptual turn in education implies profound institutional and philosophical changes. Central to this turn has been the development of Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Math (STEAM)…

"Die Zauberflöte" is simultaneously one of Mozart's most accessible and most complex operas. Yet while this duality makes it a potentially valuable cultural artifact for the language classroom, students' unfamiliarity with both its operatic genre and Enlightenment context can pose a challenge to teachers. This article functions…

Artistic creation has always reflected the spirit of the moment, and opera has not been an exception. There are several examples of operas that appeared at key moments of the development of science, portraying them. Additionally, there are also operas that emerged after scientific events or the lifetime of the scientists by whom they were…

In this essay I explore problems of pedagogy related to Hans Krása's "Brundibár" by drawing heavily upon the thinking of two divergent theoretical perspectives regarding Holocaust testimony as advanced by Giorgio Agamben (2002) and Shoshana Felman (1992). I theorize that lodged within a space of difficult knowledge coalesced through…

The paper presents a microethnographic examination of an operatic masterclass, based on a transcribed video recording of just one such class. It is a companion piece to a more generalised ethnographic account of such masterclasses as pedagogic events. The detailed analysis demonstrates the close relationship between spoken and unspoken actions in…

The myth of Orpheus is intricately implicated in the origin of song. For centuries, myth and music have cooperated in a variety of genres, foremost among them in opera. The myth, open to reinterpretation across linguistic, national, and temporal boundaries, served as a starting point for an extracurricular opera project in the metropolitan region…

In this article, the author explores the richly layered double text of Kushner and Sendak's picturebook, "Brundibar" (2003)--the historical context of "Brundibar" as a Holocaust-era children's operetta by Hans Krasa and Adolf Hoffmeister, and the present day manifestation of "Brundibar" as a children's picturebook. In…

Two of the most influential works of the Western nineteenth century were completed in 1859: Charles Darwin's "The Origin of Species" and Richard Wagner's opera "Tristan and Isolde." Although created within very different cultural traditions, these works show some striking similarities: both brought about a critical, long-lasting debate and caused…

Operatic music involves both singing and acting (as well as rich audiovisual background arising from the orchestra and elaborate scenery and costumes) that multiply the mechanisms by which emotions are induced in listeners. The present study investigated the effects of music, plot, and acting performance on emotions induced by opera. There were…

This article describes a children's opera about bullying that was presented to five classrooms in three schools and evaluated with a pre-post design. Data were available for 104 Grade 4 and 5 students who completed a bullying prevalence survey and bullying knowledge quiz before and 6 weeks after the opera. Bullying knowledge increased…