The San Francisco Opera Guild sponsors the Operatunities Program which introduces elementary and secondary students in California to opera. For example, each year the Scholar Opera visits 130 schools from San Francisco to San Jose, exposing approximately 50,000 youngsters to the music and drama of opera. (RM)

The Piedmont Opera Company embarked on opera productions in two junior high schools, involving professional performers with students and faculty. School members sang in the chorus, danced, and acted in walk-on roles. Many departments besides music took part in the varied aspects of the production. (CS)

Describes the Viva Kids! Program, in an inner-city elementary school in Florida, in which students create and produce their own opera, engendering great enthusiasm and giving students a new sense of responsibility. (SR)

This paper reports two projects done by children in Hong Kong, adapting the Reggio experience to fit the local needs of the community and the children. As Carla Rinaldi said, children are constantly "in search of meaning, finding the sense and meaning of things we do" (Lee, 2001, p. 29). The first project documented how children of the…

The world of classical music, says the writer, has always been international, and has now become truly global. Opera is perhaps traditionally, and most conspicuously, global. At any performance of the Metropolitan Opera of New York, for example, one encounters several different nationalities on stage, back stage, and in the orchestra pit. But the…

This article reports on a five-year Australian study where pre-service primary and secondary teachers were encouraged to enhance their creativity through the development of ethnographic operatic performances. The creativity focus of this project was the important aspect of risk-taking and daring. The methodological basis for the study is…

Describes class activities for incorporating and teaching about opera into the Italian language instruction classroom, focusing on the enhancement of cultural knowledge and understanding that opera offers. (CB)

A family literacy program used television soap operas as a starting point for investigating home and community literacy practices. Parents participated as co-researchers, comparing media portrayals of literacy events with their own everyday practices. (SK)

A model performing arts program (The Arts from the Inside Out) for gifted and talented elementary students at the Robert Blair Pollock Elementary School in Philadelphia (PA), provides children with first-hand backstage experience with opera, music, dance, drama, filmmaking, and architecture. (CL)

Describes (in the form of an opera libretto in five acts) the experience of creating an opera in a first-grade bilingual classroom. Shows that literacy is not reading and writing, opera is not inaccessible, and art is not a frill. Finds that children made flexible use of sign systems and achieved some degree of bilingualism. (SR)

This article discusses how a social studies teacher taught her middle school students about the components of an opera and prepared her students for putting on an opera. The development of the opera and how the opera training related to the social studies, language arts, and music curriculum are addressed. (Contains 1 reference.) (CR)

This article describes a program of the Lyric Opera Company of Chicago (Illinois) that brought opera to the classroom of students with deafness in grades three through six. The four-session program explored vocabulary, music, story-telling, and Japanese culture and culminated in a student production of "Madame Butterfly." (JDD)

Offers examples of dramatic experiences (student produced soap operas) in two classrooms in British comprehensive secondary schools. Concludes that students in other countries would find such experiences as meaningful and enjoyable as their British counterparts. Notes that the two teachers managed to be flexible, appropriating effective…

In San Rafael (California) a series of assembly programs and art shows exposes students to cultural events. (JM)

This first of a two-part series on resources in major university music libraries contains "Rare Resources in the Yale Music Library" (Harold E. Samuel) and "The Music Library, University of California, Berkeley" (John H. Roberts). Topics discussed include special collections, rare books and manuscripts, music archives, and…