We believe that opera is a powerful art form with themes that speak to high schoolers, and that building familiarity with the plot, characters and music before attending a live performance, puts students in the driver’s seat.

When Connexionarts undertook the writing of a study guide series for Opera Lyra Ottawa’s high school matinees, we knew we needed to create learning resources to:

• simplify the plot

• build familiarity with the opera’s most pivotal music

• develop understanding of the principal characters and

• provide the historical background of how the opera might reflect human struggles of the times

This involved many Connexionarts team-hours of active listening, viewing and reading in order to synthesize and pull out what’s needed for the above criteria. From there, it was a matter of creating lesson plans that, when put in the hands of teachers, would be easy to follow and carry out, complete with digital access for listening and viewing. Some of the features teachers found most helpful in our guides were the illustrated Plot-at-a Glance and a listening matrix complete with storyline, musical detail, and listening strategies and activities for excerpts.

The results? Positive feedback from the teachers, and highly attentive audiences at the performances…high school students who were entranced by the music, following the dramatic subtleties and rose to their feet at the end with prolonged and boisterous applause for multiple curtain calls.

Can high school students love opera? We say a resounding, yes!