Via CNN today was a story about how a cooperative effort between opera students at Southern Methodist University and Dallas Opera to bring opera and life lessons to elementary school kids.
The partnership goes into the schools with an opera called Red Carnations which deals with the dangers stranger pose as the story unfolds. The teachers are provided with study guides prior to the visit so they can prepare the students for the experience.
Obviously the point is to introduce opera to kids at a young age but I imagine there is also a hope that teachers will see the relevance of opera and the arts as teaching tools.
Though I suppose opera was the downfall of a teacher in Bennett, CO
Stunning…and not in a good way! After being so happy to read of a program that finally uses music for it’s most valuable purpose, teaching children about life and a very important safety lesson, we get this boneheaded comment at he end of the article:
“Hopefully, by performing for children, it will be a learning experience and I can take that away to perform for discerning critics,” Venman said.
The point of this performance is not for you to learn but to teach children, and who cares about “discerning” when a visceral spontaneous response to your voice is the true measure of a connection. This is not your training program, this is their training program! Stop this self absorbtion and start being in the moment of where you are right now. If you ever have to stop singing for whatever reason and you learn of a child that you saved from a dangerous situation because of your performance then that will have been the greatest performance of your career regardless of how or what you sang…what is more important after all: pleasing a “discerning critic” or saving a life?
Ron Spigelman