Pittsburgh Festival Opera Teaching Artists will facilitate these multi-disciplinary sessions with help from field experts specializing in costume, set and projection design, professional singers and composers, lighting and production support. While students will create the show, we will support them with a strong infrastructure and choice within parameters that will result in a final performance for the community, friends, and family. All material is being modified to ensure the safety of all individuals involved and will be updated routinely.

Week 1 – Introduction

• Day 1: What is Opera? | Relevant examples | Discussion | Imagination
  • Traditional vs Contemporary
• Day 2: What’s Happening, What’s Cool? (Local and national events, social justice movements, Pop Culture) Discussion: What’s missing that you want to see?

Week 2 – Writing

• Day 1: Sample Opera Librettos
• Day 2: Think characters, drama and a message

Week 3 – Music

• Day 1: Listening & Jam Session
• Day 2: Choosing and organizing, writing

Week 4 – Image Imagination

• Day 1: Group web search, magazines, image board
• Day 2: Film content for projections, what does the story look, feel like?

Week 5 –  Building 

• Day 1: Behind the scenes; projection images, voice overs, set pieces, costumes, sound
• Day 2: The Music; accompaniment, roles, script

Week 6 – Music

• Day 1: Dialogue & Recitative
• Day 2: Improvisation, free style, building the score

Week 7 – Molding

• Day 1: Recap, look at all the content gathered so far, arrange, fill in
• Day 2: Rough run throughs, scenes

Week 8 – Rehearsing

• Day 1: Rough Run
• Day 2: Final Run

Week 9 – Performance and Wrap Up

• Day 1: Final Run & Performance
• Day 2: Wrap Up: What did you learn? How will you use it?