ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA Student Guide | Opera Company of Philadelphia

Opera Company of Philadelphia and The School District of Philadelphia Present

A C

Samuel Barber’s

ntony & leopatra Final Dress Rehearsal Monday, March 15, 2010 at 7:00 p.m. at the Perelman Theater

Opera

A Family Guide to

Pennsylvania’s standards in education call for students to show what they know and are able to do and children need to share what they have discovered or learned. Thus, the title of our program is Sounds of Learning™. It reflects our belief that children must be actively engaged in sharing ideas.

The Sounds of Learning™ workbook and teacher guide will integrate with local core literacy curriculum in many ways. Just as opera is a uniquely integrated art, combining orchestra, voice, literature, drama, and dance, Sounds of Learning™ is an interdisciplinary and student-centered program. The goal of the Active Learning sections is to have your children engaged in the process of self-teaching. They will be able to show how they have gained insights into their learning by drawing, writing, and discussing the issues most relevant to them. In this way, students demonstrate what they can do with what they know.

We believe the family is the most important foundation to learning. Let your kitchen table become a classroom where your children can build their knowledge of opera and the humanities. As you join in the teaching and learning process with your children, watch their eyes sparkle. Opera is a communal celebration, so too should be your children’s education.

In reading the libretto, we suggest that you and your family members take turns reading particular roles. Dr. Ellen Winner of Harvard’s Project Zero found that: “drama helps to build verbal skills that transfer to new materials;” helps students in “reading readiness and achievement;” and “oral and written language development.” (Journal of Aesthetic Education, v34, #3/4, Fall/Winter, 2000.)

In preparing for the opera, we suggest you purchase New World Records’ excellent recording of this opera.

Goals and Objectives of Sounds of Learning™ • • • • • •

Improve literacy rates by using the opera’s libretto to teach courses across the curriculum Understand the plot, characters, and their motivations Learn something about the composer, and others involved in writing the opera Know something of the historic and social context of the story Know some key musical elements, recognize certain melodies, differentiate between voices Understand the role music plays by expressing emotions and heightening the dramatic experience • Understand the various elements of producing opera and the functions of those involved; e.g. conductor, director, set designer, technical crew, etc.

• Develop the ability to make judgments about the opera, production, and performance.

• Relate incidents in the opera to those of the present day

Best Practices in Arts Education is sponsored

by Pennsylvania Alliance for Arts Education, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and the Pennsylvania Department of Education.

Table of

Contents Opera 101: Getting Ready for the Opera 2 3 4 6 7 8

Opera Company of Philadelphia The Curtis Institute of Music The Kimmel Center and the Perelman Theater Opera Etiquette 101 Opera - Online!

A Brief History of Western Opera

Relating Opera to History: The Culture Connection 10 12 13 14 15 16

Native Son: Samuel Barber Legendary Queen Cleopatra Ruling Family: The Ptolomaic Dynasty The Gods of Ancient Egypt The Egyptian Goddess Isis Egypt and the Pyramids

17

GAME: Connect the Opera Terms

18 19 20 21

Bard of Stratford: William Shakespeare Words, words, words: Shakespeare’s Influence on the English Language All the World’s a Stage: The Globe Theatre Shakespeare at the Movies

Production Information 22 23

The Infamous Premiere of Antony and Cleopatra Antony and Cleopatra: Plot Synopsis

24 25 26 28 30 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43

There’s a Place for You at Settlement Music School A Sampling of Careers in the Arts So you want to sing like an Opera Singer The Highs and Lows of the Operatic Voice Careers in the Arts The Subtle Art of Costume Design Etymology: The Study of Words Sequence of the Story Make Your Own Synopsis Recognizing Facts and Opinions Supporting Your Opinions Compose Your Own Review of Antony and Cleopatra How to Write Poetry Like the Bard Character Analysis and Motivation Conflicts and Loves in Antony and Cleopatra What Happens Next?/Alternate Endings Ask Why?

Lessons

Check out our website for additional content! Here you’ll find more information on the opera, its themes, lessons, and links to even more fascinating material. See page 7 for more details.

2

Opera Company of Philadelphia Opera has played a vital part in Philadelphia’s history. The first opera in Philadelphia that we know of was the opera Midas in 1769. Ever since then opera has been so popular in Philadelphia that there have been several opera companies in the city at the same time! In fact, the Opera Company of Philadelphia was created when the Philadelphia Grand Opera Company and the Philadelphia Lyric Opera Company joined in 1975. Since then, the Opera Company of Philadelphia has honored the city’s operatic traditions.

Each season the Opera Company presents five different operas with singers from all over the world. Three of the operas are given in the beautiful, large-scale Academy of Music.

With just under 2,900 seats, the Academy is the Opera Company’s home for grand opera.

Two smaller, more intimate operas are staged in the Perelman Theater. With about 600 seats, the Perelman, in the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, is perfect for chamber and modern operas.

Today, the Opera Company’s mission, or core purpose, has three parts to it: 1: Deliver outstanding productions of classic operas, often giving them in creative and cutting-edge ways, and create exciting new operas that people in Philadelphia’s socially and culturally varied area will like.

We do this by hiring the best stage designers. Sets might be in the Company’s Production Center in the Tacony area of Philadelphia. Sometimes the Opera Company partners with another company to build new sets and costumes, or rents a production from another company.

The Opera Company supports creating new American operas, too. In recent seasons three new operas have been seen at OCP: Margaret Garner by Richard Danielpour, Cyrano by David DiChiera, and Ainadamar by Agentinian composer Osvaldo Golijov. Tea: A Mirror of Soul by Chinese composer Tan Dun premieres in February 2010.

2: Find the best young, up-and-coming singers and give them the chance to sing with some of the best singers in the world We find the best young singers in our own backyard at two of the best opera schools in the world - The Curtis Institute of Music and the Academy of Vocal Arts. Singers from both schools have sung right along side stars like Denyce Graves and Nathan Gunn.

3: Create informative student and adult programs that will introduce opera to newcomers and that both long-time and new opera fans will enjoy.

Each season over 5,000 students from the Delaware Valley attend the opera through the Sounds of Learning™ program. The Company also hosts community recitals and lectures, technology-based internet events, and more.

For over 30 years the Opera Company of Philadelphia has brought audiences outstanding production quality, artistry and educational opportunities. A strong blend of traditional and innovative programming will continue to ensure the excitement of opera in Philadelphia.

Soprano Ermonela Jaho and tenor Roger Honeywell in Jun Kaneko’s stylized production of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly.

Photo: Kelly & Massa Photography

ACTIVE LEARNING 1. Find out more about the Opera Company of Philadelphia at our website: www.operaphila.org

2.

Want to learn more about the great history of opera in Philadelphia? Visit www.frankhamilton.org

The Curtis Insitute of Music The Curtis Institute of Music is widely considered one of the world's leading conservatories, or a school that specializes in teaching its students about the arts; in this case, music!

In keeping with Curtis' philosophy that students "learn most by doing," the Institute offers over one hundred public performances a year, including orchestra concerts, operas, as well as solo and chamber music recitals.

Mary Louise Curtis Bok (1876-1970) was a Philadelphia writer, philanthropist and music lover. She had donated money to Philadelphia’s community-based Settlement Music School, but wanted to create a school that would train exceptionally gifted young musicians for careers as performing artists on the highest professional level. She fulfilled that mission by forming The Curtis Institute of Music, named after her music-loving father Cyrus Curtis, which first opened its doors in 1924.

This distinctive approach to musical training has produced an impressive number of notable artists, from such legends as composers Leonard Bernstein and Samuel Barber to current stars tenor Juan Diego Flórez, conductor Alan Gilbert, violinist Hilary Hahn, and pianist Lang Lang.

Today Curtis follows many of the same principles set forth by Mrs. Bok: the school provides full-tuition scholarships to all of its students, ensuring that admissions are based solely on artistic promise. A Curtis education is uniquely tailored to the individual student, with personalized attention from its celebrated faculty with the added bonus of unusually frequent performance opportunities.

Students have the option to pursue either a Diploma or Bachelor of Music degree.

Voice students can also pursue a Master of Music degree or Professional Studies Certificate.

Currently, there are 159 students from all over the world enrolled at The Curtis Institute - including those from thirteen foreign countries. They have the chance to study with Curtis's faculty, which includes some of the most important music teachers and performers like composer Richard Danielpour, violist Roberto Díaz, voice coach Mikael Eliasen, pianst and conductor Leon Fleisher, violinist Pamela Frank, pianist Gary Graffman, composer Jennifer Higdon, violinsit Ida Kavafian, pianist Seymour Lipkin, voice teacher Marlena Kleinman Malas, double bassist and composer Edgar Meyer, conductor Otto-Werner Mueller, voice teacher Joan Patenaude-Yarnell, and many of the principal players of The Philadelphia Orchestra.

3

Given the school's small size, Curtis alumni have had a amazingly deep influence on the musical world. Sixteen percent of the important principal section leader in America's top twenty-five orchestras and four music directorships in the top fifty are held by Curtistrained musicians, and more than sixty alumni have performed with the Metropolitan Opera.

The Opera Company of Philadelphia is thrilled to be able to partner with The Curtis Insitute of Music by collaborating with the conservatory to present some of the best upand-coming singers in complete operas along side today’s brightest stars in productions at the Academy of Music and the Perelman Theater at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts.

ACTIVE LEARNING 1. Find out more about the Curtis Institute online at www.curtis.edu.

Shuler Hensley and the cast of the Curtis Opera Theatre's Wozzeck Photo by: L. C. Kelley

The Kimmel Center and the

4

Perelman Theater center requires exceptional acoustics, stage design, lighting, and various other details. In order to build such a structure, the city employed a large staff, including an architecture firm (Rafael Viñoly Architects PC), an acoustical design team led by Russell Johnson of Artec Consultants, Inc., and a team of theater consultants led by Richard Pilbrow and David I. Taylor.

The Kimmel Center occupies a complete city block at the corner of Spruce and Broad Streets along Philadelphia’s Avenue of the Arts. It is close to the Academy of Music, the University of the Arts, The Curtis Institute of Music, and many other performing venues. It is home to the Philadelphia Orchestra, but its proximity to other arts institutions makes it easily accessible for use by local performing arts organizations, like the Opera Company of Philadelphia, and touring groups, too.

“Kimmel Center Inc.’s mission is to operate a world-class performing arts center that engages and serves a broad audience from throughout the Greater Philadelphia region.”

For many years, the world-renowned Philadelphia Orchestra shared a performing space with many of the other arts organizations in the Philadelphia area. Between rehearsals and performances, there was not enough stage time to accommodate all of the ensembles and touring shows that Philadelphia attracts. The orchestra needed a new home. The local government also wanted to construct a new venue for the city’s arts organizations and touring presenters. After years of hard work, the Kimmel Center project came to fruition with its ground breaking on November 12, 1998 and its opening on December 16, 2001. In the end, the total cost was $235,000,000 including land and building costs.

In addition to the standard features of a traditional public building, a performance

The Kimmel Center’s interior is awe inspiring. A 150-foot glass half-cylinder encloses the entire complex and gives guests the feeling that they are outdoors even though they are not.

The two theaters, Verizon Hall (home of the Philadelphia Orchestra with 2,547 seats) and the Perelman Theater (for chamber music and smaller-scale dance and dramatic performances with 651 seats) appear to be two separate buildings within the complex. Verizon Hall is situated toward the back of the center, and the smaller Perelman Theater is in the front. The Perelman Theater is set on a slight angle and topped with a public garden on its roof!

The interior of Verizon Hall is shaped like the body of a violin. It is smoothly contoured and made of light wood. In contrast, the Perelman Theater is essentially a large cube. Although that may sound boring, the theater is quite extraordinary in its transformability. The goal in creating this smaller theater was to accommodate both experimental and traditional performances of theater, dance, chamber recitals, and various other events. According to the Kimmel Center web site, Richard Pilbrow said in an interview regarding the construction of the Perelman Theater, “The challenge of building the Perelman

5 Hall was a unique one: to create a superb hall for chamber music that could be changed very rapidly into a small theatre for dance and drama at minimum operating cost. This is intended both to optimize the utilization of the hall and minimize rental costs.”

To make these rapid changes possible, the stage is on a turntable. The audience seating may be expanded to wrap around the side of the stage for chamber music, or be made to just be in front for theatrical performances. There is an orchestra pit that may be opened, or covered to produce a flat floor. An entire set design can be waiting in the back and then turned around in a matter of minutes to change the room from a concert hall to the set of a dance or theater piece.

Here are some fun facts about the Kimmel Center that will leave your mind reeling!

The center has: 29,054 total cubic yards of concrete (equivalent to 92 miles of 5-foot wide sidewalk) 317,000 masonry blocks 3,700 total tons of structural steel 2,281 tonnage of rebar (reinforcing steel bars) 61,048 linear feet of structural steel tubing supporting the glass roof 1,400 tons of steel in the arches supporting the glass end walls 156,677 square feet (3.6 acres) of glass glazing 660 tons of weights holding glass end walls 9,300 gallons (860,000 square feet) of paint 594 doors 2.5 miles (13,184 linear feet) of handrails 14 elevators 144 bathroom fixtures (86 for women and 58 for men) 135,000 total cubic yards of dirt were removed from the construction site at Broad and Spruce Streets

› › › › › › › › › › › › › ›

Now that’s dreaming BIG! courtesy of www.kimmelcenter.org

(left) A view of the exterior of the Perelman Theater in the Kimmel Center. (far left) The Kimmel Center as seen from Broad Street.

Photos: Michael Bolton

The audience arrives for a chamber performance inside the Perelman Theater.

Photo: Richard Doran, Courtesy, Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia.

6

Opera Etiquette 101 There’s nothing quite as exciting as attending the opera in a professional theater like the Perelman Theater at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts. You will attending a dress rehearsal of the opera Antony and Cleopatra.

Unlike actors on television or in the movies, performers onstage are very aware of the audience.

They want to share their love of performing with you.

Everything you do in the audience affects what happens on stage. You can show them how much you appreciate their work and the opportunity to come to the rehearsal by being as quiet as possible.

So, please refrain from talking out of respect for the cast, musicians, the entire production team, and everyone in the theater. Give the artists and the production your full attention!

ACTIVE LEARNING The picture on this page shows several patrons and famous opera characters on their way to attend an opera at the theater.

Now picture yourself in their shoes. On a separate piece of paper, write a few words on what you think the trip to the opera will be like. You may want to mention going to the Kimmel Center or visiting Perelman Theater, attending the opera. What will you wear? How will you and your classmates act? At what time will you meet your classmates? How may classmates will attend? Will you have a special dinner before the opera? If so, where? Will the opera be exciting and entertaining? Share your thoughts here and compare your stories with your classmates.

Here’s a list of do’s and don’ts so that everyone in the theater can enjoy the opera:

Please Do...

• Applaud after the arias; you can shout “Bravo!” for the men and “Brava!” for the women.

• Enter and exit the theater in an orderly fashion.

• Please use the bathrooms before the rehearsal begins or at intermission.

• Turn off your cell phones and all electronic devices.

• Enjoy the rehearsal. You’ve worked too hard preparing for the rehearsal not to!

Don’t Forget...

• No food, gum and beverages are allowed inside the theater.

• Photographs or video footage may not be taken during the performance.

• No talking or whispering during the performance.

• No shoving, jumping, running, or spitting in the theater.

• Please obey the theater ushers and staff.

• Keep all objects to yourself. If you throw something, you might hurt someone and cause a disruption in performance.

It is grounds for removal from the auditorium.

• MAKE YOUR SCHOOL PROUD!

OPERA – Online!

7

Many of you may be studying music in your schools or privately. Where do you go if you want to learn more about Antony and Cleopatra, opera singers, opera-related topics and experience opera more frequently? Visit OCP’s website at: operaphila.org/community/sol-prod3.shtml Here you can find more information about Antony and Cleopatra and all the operas presented by the Opera Company at absolutely no cost!

Opera Right in Your Email Inbox!

Another great way to learn more is to sign up for the free weekly Sounds of Learning™ email list. Email your name, school and age to education@operaphila.org and each week we’ll send you an opera video “clip of the week” with famous opera singers singing great arias and ensembles all throughout the summer. Some will be funny, some will be thrilling, some will be dramatic, all if it will be exciting! Also included in the email will be the website of the week. We’ll feature links to singers’ websites, music links, other great music and opera websites. You can build a whole library of video clips to go back to again and again!

Share the clips and links with your family and friends.

Don’t forget to check out our Sounds of Learning™ blog at http://operaphillysol.blogspot.com.

The blog will allow you to discuss the opera with students throughout the tri-state area!

Log onto the blog and share your thoughts and views about the opera, the music, the set, the singers, the Academy of Music, coming to center city Philadelphia, the email list clip of the week and more! Other students participating in Sounds of Learning™ from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware want to hear what you have to say! Post your comments by going to: http://operaphillysol.blogspot.com.

See rehearsal photos on our website at http://www.operaphila.org/production/behind-scenes. Log on and see our Behind the Scenes area to see how a production develops from the first day of rehearsal to opening night!

Also, you can download extra copies of the Sounds of Learning™ guide and past guides from this page as well. All of this content is provided for free!

If you’re online, check out our myspace and facebook pages, too. Just search for Opera Company of Philadelphia!

A Brief History of

8

Western Opera

Theatrical performances that use music, song and dance to tell a story can be found in many cultures. Opera is just one example of music drama.

In its 400-year history each opera has been shaped by the times in which it was created and tells us much about those who participated in the art form as writers, composers, performers, and audience members.

The first works to be called operas were created in Italy at the end of the sixteenth century.

They were inspired by a group of intellectuals known as the Camerata who, like many thinkers of their time in the late Renaissance, admired the culture of the ancient Greeks. They proposed the invention of a new type of musical theater that would imitate Greek drama’s use of music.

The result was a series of operas based on Greek myths, starting with Dafne by Jacopo Peri in 1598. The most famous work of this early period is Claudio Monteverdi’s Orfeo (1607), based on the myth of Orpheus. These early operas had all the basic elements that we associate with opera today, including songs, instrumental accompaniments, dance, costumes, and scenery.

These early operas were performed in the courts of Italian noblemen, but soon opera became Claudio Monteverdi popular with the general public. 1567-1643 Europe at the time had a growing middle class with a taste for spectacular entertainment.

As opera’s popularity grew, so did the complexity of operas and the level of spectacle. Many opera houses had elaborate machinery that could be used to create special effects such as flying actors and crumbling buildings. There was much debate about whether an excess of visual elements in opera detracted from the quality of the music and drama.

Some people even worried that too much comedy in opera could lead to immorality among the public!

During the period from about 1600 to 1750, the Baroque period in music, Italian opera spread across Europe. In fact the Italian style of opera was so popular that even though other countries and regions often had their own traditions of musical drama, the Italian form was usually preferred.

George Frederick Handel was a German-born composer who lived and worked in England, but his operas such as Julius Caesar (1724) were in the Italian language and used an Italian style of music.

The only nation to develop a national tradition to

A tense scene from Act II of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro. (l-r: bass Richard Bernstein, baritone Simone Alberghini and sopranos Christine Brandes and Mary Dunleavy.)

Bass Kevin Glavin gets a close shave from baritone Roberto DeCandia in Rossini’s The Barber of Seville.

rival the Italian was France, where operas often included ballets inserted into the story. JeanBaptiste Lully and Jean-Philippe Rameau are the most famous French Baroque opera composers.

By the middle of the seventeenth century Europe was changing. The growing middle class was more influential than ever, and people were starting to talk about new forms of government and organization in society. Soon the American and French Revolutions (1776 and 1789) would seek to establish the first modern democracies.

Music was changing, too. Composers abandoned the Baroque era’s complicated musical style and began to write simpler music with more expressive melodies. Opera composers could write melodies that allowed characters to express their thoughts and feelings more believably. One of the first operas to use this new style was Cristoph Willibald Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice (1762).

With the new democratic sentiments came interest in operas about common people in familiar settings, rather than stories from ancient mythology.

A good example is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro (1786), in which a servant outsmarts a count. Several of Mozart’s operas remain among the most popular today. They include Figaro, Don Giovanni (1788), Così fan tutte (1790), and The Magic Flute (1791).

In the nineteenth century operas continued to grow more diverse in their subject matter, forms, and national styles. The Italian tradition continued in the bel canto movement. Operas written in this style, which means “beautiful singing”, included arias with intricate ornamentation, or combinations of fast notes, in the melodies. The most famous bel canto composers are Vincenzo Bellini, Gaetano Donizetti and Gioacchino Rossini, whose The Barber of Seville (1816) is one of the most beloved comic operas.

Later in the century the Romantic Movement led many composers to take an interest their national identities. As a result, operas in languages other than Italian became more common, and new works often reflected pride in a country’s people, history and folklore. Among the operas that show the growth of national traditions are Carl Maria von Weber’s Der Freischütz (Germany, 1821), Mikhail Glinka’s Ruslan and Lyudmilla (Russia, 1842) and Georges Bizet’s Carmen (France, 1875). In Italy Giuseppe Verdi composed in a bold, direct style, and his operas, such as Nabucco and Macbeth, often included elements of nationalism. In Germany Richard Wagner took the Romantic style to the extreme in an ambitious series of operas known collectively as The Ring of the Nibelung (1876) based on Norse mythology.

In the twentieth century opera became even more diversified and experimental, to the point that it sometimes became difficult to distinguish it from other forms of musical theater. Some composers such as Giacomo Puccini (La bohème, 1896), Claude Debussy (Pelléas et Mélisande, 1902), Richard Strauss (Salome, 1905), and Benjamin Britten (Peter Grimes, 1945) continued to write operas that were similar in many ways to those of the nineteenth century. Others, horrified by the destructive effects of World War I (1914-1919) and other aspects of modern life, created works with radically experimental and dissonant music. These operas often explored topics that were either disturbing (Wozzeck by Alban Berg, 1925) or absurdist (The Rake’s Progress by Igor Stravinsky, 1951). American opera also came into its own in this century, beginning with George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess (1935) which incorporated jazz and blues styles of music. In the latter part of the century a repetitive and hypnotic style known as minimalism was exemplified in Phillip Glass’s Einstein on the Beach (1976), a piece that would hardly be recognized as an opera by earlier standards. The late twentieth century even saw a return to some of the traits of Romantic opera in works such as John Corigliano’s The Ghosts of Versailles (1991).

Today, opera is a living art form in which both new works and those by composers of the past continue to be performed. It remains to be seen what the future of opera will be, but if history is any indication, it will be shaped by the creativity of librettists, composers and other artists responding the changing times in which they live.

9

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 1756-1791

Native Son:

Samuel Barber

10

West Chester native, Samuel Barber Photo from the Library of Congress, LCUSZ62-42491 Carl Van Vechten Photographs Collection

Samuel Osborne Barber II was born on March 9, 1910 in West Chester, Pennsylvania.

His father was a doctor and his mother was a pianist. She was not the only musical one in the family as her sister was the legendary Metropolitan Opera contralto Louise Homer. From his boyhood home at 107 South Church Street, it was clear from the very beginning that young Sam was musically gifted.

He began studying piano when he was barely six years old, wrote his first musical composition at age seven; his first opera at ten.

He knew that music was his destiny. In a famous letter to his mother the nine year old musician wrote: “Dear Mother: I have written to tell you my worrying secret. Now don’t cry when you read it because it is neither yours nor my fault. I suppose I will have to tell it now, without any nonsense. To begin with I was not meant to be an athlete. I was meant to be a composer, and will be I’m sure. I’ll ask you one more thing.— Don’t ask me to try to forget this unpleasant thing and go play football.—Please— Sometimes I’ve been worrying about this so much that it makes me mad (not very).”

He continued on his path to become a composer – when Barber was twelve he became a church organist and at fourteen entered the new music school that had recently opened in Philadelphia: The Curtis Institute of Music. Here he studied piano with Russian pianist Isabelle Vengerova, composition with Italian violinist and composer Natale Rosario Scalero, and conducting with the legendary Fritz Reiner. He also studied voice with Spanish-American baritone Emilio de Gogorza and Barber’s

baritone voice was of such quality that he considered becoming a professional singer.

While at Curtis he met his longtime companion and occasional collaborator, Gian Carlo Menotti in 1928.

After graduating, Barber went to Vienna to study singing and traveled throughout Europe thanks to winning the 1935 American Prix de Rome. His recitals, radio broadcasts, and a recording of his song “Dover Beach” for voice and string quartet soon attracted the attention of the days’ leading conductors including, most famously, Arturo Toscanini. In 1938, when Barber was only 28 years old, Toscanini directed the NBC Symphony Orchestra in Barber’s “Adagio for Strings,” which had been arranged from Barber’s String Quartet op.11. The “Adagio for Strings” has become his most recognizable and beloved compositions, and has been used in films such as Platoon, The Elephant Man, El Norte, and Lorenzo’s Oil. From 1939 to 1942, Barber taught composition at The Curtis Institute of Music.

During World War II, Barber served in the Army Air Corps, completing military training and clerical work during the day and composing at home at night. During this time he composed his Second Symphony, which was originally titled Symphony Dedicated to the Air Forces, and Commando March, which was written especially for the United States Army. After the war, Barber wrote his first ballet, Medea, for Martha Graham’s dance company and was commissioned to write vocal pieces such as Knoxville: Summer of 1915, Mélodies passagères, and the Hermit Songs.

Barber approached the Metropolitan Opera about producing an opera he had been writing with his partner Menotti, a celebrated opera composer as well, as librettist. Using Menotti’s story and libretto, Barber wrote his first opera Vanessa, which opened in 1958 to great success. It earned him the Pulitzer Prize and election to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Riding on the success of Vanessa, Barber and Menotti collaborated again in 1959 to write the short A Hand of Bridge.

With the opening of the new Lincoln Center, the Metropolitan Opera turned to Barber again to write the opera Antony and Cleopatra to kick off their 1966 season in the new opera house. Based on Shakespeare’s play and with libretto, direction, and design by famed opera director Franco Zeffirelli, the opera was not well received. By all accounts, the opera’s over-elaborate direction and mechanical malfunctions were largely to blame. Believing that the opera contained some of his best work, Barber spent the next decade revising the piece with Menotti’s help. In 1975 the revised version was performed by the Juilliard School, with Menotti directing a much more intimate, musically developed, and shorter Antony and Cleopatra.

11

Barber’s childhood home at 107 South Church Street in West Chester, PA

The negative critical reaction to Barber’s second opera weighed heavily on him.

Although he continued to write new music after the 1966 premiere of the opera, including the song cycles Despite and Still, which was first performed by Leontyne Price, and “Three Songs,” written for the German baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, he was never to enjoy the same acclaim that he had during the mid to late 1950s. Yet his last major work, the Third Essay for Orchestra was premiered in 1978 and received much acclaim.

After Antony and Cleopatra, Barber suffered from clinical depression, alcoholism and had isolated himself. His relationship with Menotti suffered as well. The two had lived together in their home called Capricorn in Mount Kisco, New York since 1943. The two began to grow apart; Barber was a very private man and Menotti was quite extroverted. They parted in 1973 and Capricorn was sold, much to Barber’s dismay. He moved to an apartment in New York City where he died of cancer in 1981 at the age of 70 with Gian Carlo Menotti at his side.

Samuel Barber will always be valued as one of America’s most important and talented composers. His gift for beautiful and memorable melodies, colorful orchestrations, and some of the most moving music ever written will secure his place in musical history.

This marker is on display in front of Barber’s childhood home in West Chester, PA. Photo: William Pfingsten, May 31, 2008, The Historical Marker Database

ACTIVE LEARNING 1. Learn more about Samuel Barber online at: www.schirmer.com/composers/barber_bio.html

2. Learn more about West Chester Pennsylvania at http://www.west-chester.com/ and www.chestercohistorical.org/

3.

Where is Mount Kisco, New York? Can you find it on a map?

Legendary Queen

Cleopatra

12

Cleopatra as interpreted by the artist Eugene Delacroix.

Cleopatra is by far the most famous Egyptian Queen off all time, but why? Although historians portray Cleopatra as a capable and popular ruler, we tend to imagine her through Roman eyes. What is the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the name Cleopatra?

made to him. This restored Cleopatra to the throne. Even though Caesar and Cleopatra had a son together, Caesar was already married so under Egyptian customs Cleopatra married her remaining brother.

Roman propaganda (originating with Octavian) portrayed her as a perilous harlot who practiced witchcraft and tricked men as she grasped for power which was far beyond what was proper for a woman. In the late first century B.C. the poet Horace called her “A crazy queen…plotting...to demolish the Capitol and topple the (Roman) Empire.”

What kind of Pharaoh was Cleopatra?

After Cleopatra’s death she became a “tragic heroine,” with love of Antony being her fatal motivation. Over the course of the next two millennia, paintings, plays and operas focused on the details of her life and death but still, can you ask yourself, who was Cleopatra?

The continuous struggle between Cleopatra and her brother (also her husband) Ptolemy XIII to rule as Pharaoh in Egypt was not going as well as Cleopatra had hoped.

Ptolemy XIII had driven his sister from their palace at Alexandria after Cleopatra’s attempt to make herself the sole leader of the people.

Meanwhile, Julius Caesar arrived in Alexandria in 48 B.C. At this time Rome and Egypt were allies. Caesar thought it was necessary to intervene in the family feud and set up a peace meeting but Ptolemy XIII’s forces refused to let Cleopatra back into Alexandria.

Cleopatra, now aware of Caesar’s intervention smuggled herself into the palace wrapped in a carpet. “She was clearly using all her talents from the moment she arrived on the world stage before Caesar,” says Egyptologist John Fletcher.

Caesar had Ptolemy XIII drowned in the Nile River because of a disrespectful gesture he

Julius Caesar died on March 15th 44 B.C. With her ally gone Cleopatra disposed of her brother and made her son Caesarion her new co-regent or co-ruler. Such ruthlessness was not uncommon in Egyptian politics in Cleopatra’s day; it was necessary for her survival and that of her son.

Sources suggest that Cleopatra was very popular among her own people. Since the time of Alexander the Great’s general, Ptolemy I Soter, all Alexandria-based rulers were ethnically Greek. Cleopatra was one of the only rulers since her predecessors to learn the Egyptian language. Cleopatra identified herself as a truly Egyptian pharaoh and in one of her self portraits dated 35 B.C. she is called philopatris meaning “she who loves her country.”

The Roman Empire was expanding rapidly under Julius Caesar’s heir Octavian.

Cleopatra’s foreign policy was to maintain Egypt’s independence by befriending Roman General Mark Antony. Ancient sources conclude that Mark Antony and Cleopatra did love each other and that Cleopatra bore three of his children, but the relationship was also very useful to an Egyptian queen who wished to expand and protect her empire.

In 33 B.C. Octavian managed to defeat Mark Antony’s ships and because Cleopatra’s ships withdrew from the battle unexpectedly, he pursed them both into Egypt. Realizing that all was in effect lost, and mistakenly thinking that Cleopatra was already dead, Mark Antony committed suicide. A few days later Cleopatra and two of her trusted servants killed themselves on August 12, 30 B.C., to escape the capture of Octavian.

The story of the famous asp that killed the queen has been passed on over the years.

That, along with the image of her death, more than anything else, has given Cleopatra immortality.

Ruling Family

The Ptolemaic Dynasty

13

Did you know that Cleopatra was a She descendant of Alexander the Great? belonged to the great ruling family Ptolemy which governed during one of the most influential and greatest dynastic eras in history. The Ptolemies were a Greek family and they ruled Egypt for generations, from 305 B.C. to 30 B.C. In 332 B.C., the legendary Greek king Alexander the Great conquered Egypt with little resistance from the Persian Empire (modern day Iran) and was welcomed by the Egyptians as a “deliverer.”

Ptolemy was a somatophylax, one of the seven bodyguards who served as Alexander the Great's generals and deputies. He was appointed satrap (or governor) of Egypt after Alexander's death in 323 B.C. In 305 B.C., he declared himself King Ptolemy I, later known as Soter (saviour). All male rulers from the Ptolemic Dynasty took the name Ptolomy, while all female rules took the name Cleopatra.

The Ptolemy ruling family based its government on an Egyptian model and based it in the new capital city of Alexandria. The city was to showcase the supremacy and prestige of Greek rule, and became a seat of learning and culture, centered at the famous Library of Alexandria. The Lighthouse of Alexandria lit the way for the many ships which kept trade flowing through the city. The Ptolemies made commerce and revenue-generating enterprises, such as papyrus manufacturing, their top priority.

Greek culture did not replace traditional Egyptian culture. The Ptolemies supported the Egyptians time-honored traditions in an effort to secure the loyalty and love of the general public. They built new temples in Egyptian style, supported traditional cults, and portrayed themselves as pharaohs. Some traditions merged, religious differences were blended into new religious belief systems.

Some of the Greek and Egyptian gods merged to become one such as Serapis, a god that was merged from Hellenistic-Egyptian gods to become a new god in antiquity. His most renowned temple was the Serapeum of Alexandria.

Bust of Cleopatra’s ancestor, the legendary Alexander the Great

The most famous member of the Ptolemy line was the last queen, Cleopatra VII, known for her role in the Roman political battles between Julius Caesar and Pompey, and later between Octavian and Mark Antony. Her suicide at the conquest by Rome marked the end of Ptolemaic rule in Egypt which became a province of the Roman Empire in 30 B.C. Cleopatra would go on to become as legendary as her Greek ancestor who helped establish the Ptolomies in Egypt, but it is she who would outshine all of her other ancestors and who cement her family’s place in the history books.

ACTIVE LEARNING 1. Learn more about the Ptolomaic Dynasty by visiting the Ancient Egyptian wing at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Anthropoloyg and Archaeology.

The Gods of

14

The Egyptian god Atum in an ancient drawing First book of respirations of Usirur on display at the Louvre in France.

Ancient Egypt As the story goes…In the beginning there was only Nun. Nun was the dark waters of chaos; the state of being without order or organization.

One day, a hill called Ben-Ben ascended from the waters. On the top of this hill stood the first god; Atum. (Later know as Atum-Ra or Ra the sun god) It is said that Atum coughed and spat out Shu, the god of the air, and Tefnut, the goddess of moisture.

Shu and Tefnut had two children.

First, there was Geb, the

god of the earth and then there was Nut, the goddess of the sky. Shu lifted Nut up so that she became a canopy over Geb. Nut and Geb had four children named Osiris, Isis, Seth and Nephthys. Nephthys was Isis’ twin sister and guardian goddess of the dead. Osiris was the king of the earth and Isis was the queen. Osiris was a good king, and he ruled over the earth for many years…

However, all was not well. Seth was jealous of his brother Osiris because he wanted to be the ruler of the earth. He grew angrier and angrier until one day he killed Osiris.

When Osiris died he crossed over into the underworld and Seth remained on earth and became king.

Osiris and Isis had one son called Horus.

Horus battled against Seth and regained the throne. After that, Horus was the king of the earth and Osiris was the king of the underworld.

The Egyptian Goddess

Isis

Throughout the opera we frequently hear the name of the Egyptian goddess “Isis” being called. She was worshipped throughout Egypt and was considered to be the protectress of women, mothers and children. She was also known as the goddess of magic. She lived in a time when the sun god Re (previously known as Atum) was the most powerful but it is said that she tricked Re into revealing his secret name and in doing so, Isis obtained many of his magical powers making her the most powerful of the gods.

The story of Isis and Osiris is known throughout Egypt as one of the most popular tales in Egyptian mythology.

As you know from the previous article on “The Gods of Ancient Egypt,” Seth killed Osiris to become king. What you do not know is how this all came about…

The first time that Seth killed Osiris, Isis used her magical powers to bring her husband back to life. When Seth heard this news he was outraged and was determined to carry out the deed in a way that Isis could not undo, and so Seth killed Osiris again. Seth mutilated his body into multiple parts, hiding them throughout the desert so that Isis could not find them. Isis did not give up; she spent years searching for her husband’s scattered body. Eventually she found all the pieces and magically brought Osiris back to life. At this point, Isis becomes pregnant with Osiris’ child but Osiris never fully recovered from the wounds inflicted by Seth and eventually he dies becoming King of the Underworld.

15

of the Nile River each year, originally named The Night of the Tear-Drop in remembrance of the extent to which Isis lamented the death of Osiris. It is said that her tears were so plentiful that it caused the Nile to overflow. Today it is celebrated annually by Egyptian Muslims and is called The Night of the Drop.

Isis remained popular in Egyptian mythology even in the days of Roman and Greeks occupation. When Christianity was brought into the Roman Empire during the forth century, her worshippers founded the first Madonna in order to keep her influence alive. Some people say that the ancient images of Isis nursing her baby Horus inspired the style of portraits of “mother and child” for centuries, including those of the “Madonna and child” found in religious art.

The Egyptian goddess Isis has much knowledge to share with modern women of today. She is a symbol of feminine strength.

Isis has the capacity to reach a great depth of emotions; she has the act of creation and is a source of nourishment and protection.

ACTIVE LEARNING 1. To learn more about Isis, visit

www.ancient-egypt-online.com

Isis gives birth to a son, Horus. It is said that Horus sought revenge on his father’s murderer by killing Seth and taking his place as King of Egypt.

Throughout the years this myth and story has been changed and altered, but the memories of Isis as kind ruler, mother and queen remain unchanged.

Although her influences are largely forgotten, the Egyptian goddess Isis played an important role in the development of modern religions. The festival surrounding the flooding This painting is in the tomb of Seti I in the Valley of the Kings.

Egypt and the

Pyramids

16

Circa 3,000- 2,500 B.C. the Egyptians dedicated most of their time to constructing big buildings. The Pyramids are one of the most impressive monuments of the ancient world and are still standing to this day.

The Pyramids were built as tombs for the Pharaohs of Egypt. They were all built during the Old Kingdom which was when Egypt was first unified around 3000 B.C. under a Pharaoh from Upper Egypt.

Ancient Egypt was divided into two regions, known as Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt. Lower Egypt was located to the north where the Nile River stretched out broke up into different streams to form the Nile Delta.

Upper Egypt was located in the south stretching to Syene. The terminology "Upper" and "Lower" comes from the flow of the Nile from the highlands of East Africa northwards to the sea. Therefore, Upper Egypt lies to the south of Lower Egypt.

Even though the two kingdoms of Upper and Lower Egypt were united around 3000 B.C., each maintained its own regalia. Thus, the pharaohs were known as the Rulers of the Two Kingdoms or two lands, and wore the pschent, a double crown, each half representing sovereignty of one of the kingdoms.

There were numerous differences between Upper and Lower Egyptians in the ancient world. They spoke different dialects

and had different customs. Many of these differences, and the occasional tensions they created, still exist in modern times. In Egyptian Arabic, Lower Egyptians are known as baharwa and Upper Egyptians as sa’ayda.

The Pyramids The first Pharaohs built simpler tombs, called mastabas. These mastabas were square buildings with a room inside for the coffin, the mummy and the valuables that the Pharaohs would take with them to the afterlife.

The Pharaohs then began to put mounds of earth on top of their mastabas to make them appear bigger and greater. Archaeologists believe the first of its kind was the pyramid of Djoser.

The next approach was decorating the mound of earth by making them into steps i.e. the step pyramids.

Eventually the Egyptians decided to fill in the steps creating the first real pointed pyramids which were built at Giza.

ACTIVE LEARNING For more information on the pyramids and ancient Egypt, visit the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology, or National Geographics great website on the pyramids at www.nationalgeographic.com/pyramids.

One of the Seven Wonders of the World: the pyramids at Giza, Egypt.

Photo: Ricardo Liberati - wikipedia.com

Connect the

Opera Terms 1.

Opera Seria

A.

Dance spectacle set to music.

2.

Baritone

B.

Highest pitched woman’s voice.

3.

Opera

C.

Dramatic text adapted for opera.

4.

Ballet

D.

Low female voice.

5.

Orchestra

E.

Comic opera.

6.

Libretto

F.

7.

A drama or comedy in which music is the essential factor; very little is spoken.

Duet

8.

G.

Opera with dramatic and intense plots.

Aria

9.

H.

Music composed for a singing group.

Soprano

I.

A composition written for two performers.

J.

A group of musicians who play together on various musical instruments.

12. Contralto

K.

Highest pitched man’s voice.

13. Tenor

L.

A musical style used in opera and oratorio, in which the text is declaimed in the rhythm of natural speech with slight melodic variation.

10. Chorus 11. Act

14. Opera Buffa 15. Recitative

M. Male voice between bass and tenor.

16. Bass

N.

A piece of music originally designed to be played before an opera or musical play.

O.

The term describing the realistic or naturalistic school of opera that flourished briefly in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; libretti were chosen to depict a ‘slice of life’.

P.

Deepest male voice.

Q.

Elaborate solo in an opera or oratorio.

R.

Main division of a play or opera.

17. Overture 18. Verismo

17

Bard of Stratford

18

William Shakespeare

backstage for fear of bad luck. To this day it is referred to as “the Scottish play.” Later, under the patronage of King James I of England, the group was given an indoor theater known as The Blackfriars. The group was then named The King’s Men. Shakespeare’s plays were very popular with the people of London. While it was not customary to pay much to a playwright for his work, Shakespeare was given a share of the profits from the sale of tickets.

As a shareholder of the company, he became wealthy.

He also took pleasure in acting in his creations. It is believed that he acted the roles of Adam in Much Ado about Nothing and the ghost of Hamlet’s father. His knowledge of stagecraft and the demands of acting gave him a great insight into the dynamics of successful drama.

Shakespeare was born in this half-timbered house in Stratford-upon-Avon.

British Travel Association

William Shakespeare was born the third of eight children to John Shakespeare and Mary Arden in 1564. His father was a merchant and a fine leather glove maker. His mother was from a family of land owners. As William grew, his father became an alderman and later the mayor of their town, Stratford-upon-Avon. William attended the local grammar school where he studied the comedies of Plautus and Terence and the tragedies of Seneca in Latin. It was during this time that his love of the theater was born.

In 1582 William married Anne Hathaway, who was about eight years his senior. Together they had three children: Susanna, 1583, and the twins Judith and Hamnet, 1585. While there was work for William in Stratford-upon-Avon as an actor, the call of London, the capital of his craft, led him to take his family to the city in 1588. By 1594 he had established himself as both a playwright and actor and was invited to join the company The Lord Chamberlain’s Men. This group of actors performed at The Globe Theatre, located on the South Bank of the Thames River in Southwark. To attend their performances, theater goers had to take the ferry across the river or travel across the London Bridge. When The Globe Theatre, which had a thatched roof, burned down during a production of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, it became a tradition not to mention the name of the play

Although he wrote thirty-eight plays, we have no manuscripts in his handwriting because he did not consider the writing of plays as literature. He would only publish them to correct errors in other editions of his works that were printed without his permission. In his day, the concept of copyright did not exist. Anyone could copy the work of another person and publish it for profit. Shakespeare authorized the publishing of only half of his work known as “quarto” editions. For the remainder of his plays, we depend upon his friends and colleagues for “folio” editions which were published several years after his death.

Shakespeare’s poetry is also very highly regarded. His sonnets are regarded as a very high form of poetry and his work in this area earned him the epithet, “mellifluous and honey-tongued Shakespeare” in 1598. His classical epics, Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece are considered two of the

The witches wreak havoc in The Opera Company of Philadelphia’s 2003 production of Verdi’s Macbeth.

Words, words, words: Shakespeare’s influence on the English Language When Shakespeare’s Hamlet is asked what he is reading, he responds with the famous line “Words, words, words.” Even 400 years after his death, William Shakespeare’s writings leave their mark on culture even today. Considered the greatest writer in the English language, Shakespeare’s plays are filled with quotes, phrases and even words that are used in every day conversation. Listed below are some of the famous phrases and words that Shakespeare originated.

Do you recognize any of these?

As You Like It • Too much of a good thing Hamlet • Neither a borrower nor a lender be • The lady doth protest too much Portrait of William Shakespeare, Bard of Stratford.

finest pieces of writing in the English language. With his success, he returned to Stratford-upon-Avon and purchased one of the finest homes in town, New Place. Across the garden from his home, he had another home built for his daughter Susanna and her husband Dr. Hall. Whenever the plague would strike and the theaters were closed, he would return home to wait out the cycle of the disease. After writing The Tempest in 1610, he left London and retired to his country home. Six years later, the venerable “Bard of Stratford” died and was given a hero’s funeral.

So great were his plays that the field of opera has hundreds of scores written to them. Berlioz wrote his Béatrice et Bénédict based upon Much Ado about Nothing. Ralph Vaughn Williams’ opera, Sir John in Love, was based upon The Merry Wives of Windsor. Verdi’s Otello and Macbeth were based upon Shakespeare’s plays of the same name and his Falstaff was based upon both King Henry IV and The Merry Wives of Windsor. Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet has twenty-five operas based upon it, The Tempest has forty-seven and A Midsummer Night’s Dream has forty-eight operas based upon it. Few authors can claim to have affected the culture of the world more than William Shakespeare, the “Bard of Stratford.”

Henry IV, part 2 • Eaten me out of house and home • Dead as a doornail Henry VIII • For goodness sake Julius Caesar • It was Greek to me King John • Elbow room Love's Labour's Lost • The naked truth Macbeth • Knock, knock! Who’s there?

• The be-all and the end-all • Sorry sight Much Ado About Nothing • Done to death Othello • Neither here nor there • Wear my heart on my sleeve Romeo and Juliet • You kiss by the book The Merchant of Venice • Love is blind • My own flesh and blood The Merry Wives of Windsor • Laughing-stock The Taming of the Shrew • An eye-sore • Kill ... with kindness

19

All the World’s a Stage

20

The Globe Theatre

Woodcut image of the Globe Theatre circa 1612.

Theater was a very important part of life in Shakespeare’s day. There was no Wii or Sony Playstation, no computers or mp3 players, no radios or televisions, and no phones at all during the Victorian Era. What did people do to pass the time?

Reading was important, if you had access to books.

Music would be performed at home, if you had access to a fortepiano and music lessons. The one form of entertainment that everybody could access was the theater. Everyone went to the theater, rich or poor. It didn’t hurt that one of the biggest theater lovers was Queen Elizabeth I. Supposedly it was she who demanded a play devoted to the character Falstaff. She loved the old knight in Shakespeare’s Henry IV, and insisted that the bard give her a comedy which showed the fat old knight in love.

Many of Shakespeare’s plays were performed in The Globe Theatre, built in 1598 in London. It was three stories high, octagonal in shape, and 100 feet in diameter. The stage was a compact 43 feet wide by 28 feet deep and five feet off the ground. The Globe, like many theaters of it’s time, was an open-air theater that could fit 3,000 people – that’s more people than can fit into the Academy of Music. There was no roof over the main portion of it so sunlight could come in and light up the stage. (Remember, Ben Franklin didn’t experiment with electricity with his kite until 1752.) Performance would take place during the day and most likely only during fair weather. The structure was capped by a turret with a flag from which a trumpeter would announce that day’s performance.

There were three tiers, or levels, on which people sat, and standing room on the ground. The cheapest ticket would be in standing room - right in front of the stage. People in the standing room area, dubbed the groundlings, were loud and boisterous.

They would talk back to the actors and eat and drink during the performance. It could be tough in this crowd, too, with pushing, shoving, fistfights, and even pick pockets! For the middle priced ticket, you’d get a seat in the gallery on one of the theater’s tiers. You’d sit on a bench, and you’d have some protection from the hot sun or rain from the theater’s thatched roof. If you were rich and could pay the most expensive price, you’d sit in the exclusive Gentleman’s Room. These private boxes gave you a private entrance into the theater, that way you would avoid the public and be seated along the walls near the stage and allowed you to be seen by the audience, similar to the box seats on the sides of the stage of the Academy of Music.

Since the entire town would have seen a play in a few days, a new one would have to be put on pretty quickly so the theater could make money.

Acting companies couldn’t spend too much time rehearsing and would need to have a new play ready in three to four days.

Companies were known for their “star” actors who would play the romantic and heroic leads. In this time there were actors only - no actresses. All roles, male and female alike, were acted by men or boys. Boys got to play all of the young heroines like Juliette in Romeo and Juliette. In The Merry Wives of Windsor boys, whose voices had not yet changed, would have played Alice, Anne, and Meg Page. For more comedic roles like Dame Quickly, most likely an older man who specialized in playing funny ladies would have played the part.

Each of the actors in the troupe would have done certain types of roles – young men, comic parts, heroic parts, tragic parts – but each would have had their “role” in a play. That made it easier for the actors to fit into their role – especially since they might have played more than one part. When the actors received their script, it wasn’t the script of the entire play, just their scenes.

The Company would sit down before rehearsals began and the playwright would read the entire play to the actors – perhaps the only time the actors would have heard the full play.

Because the Globe had no roof, the sound of the actor’s voices would escape out of the building, not to mention the fact that audiences then could be quite noisy – especially those on the floor. Actors had to learn how to effectively project their voices.

They were forced to shout their lines, over enunciate, and overact so audiences understood what was going on.

Theaters like the Globe didn’t use sets like you’ll see in the opera Antony and Cleopatra.

Instead the back wall of the theater had different doorways and balconies that could be used for any situation. They might use a particular prop or piece of furniture that could be used only if it was absolutely necessary, like the laundry basket in which Falstaff is hidden, but you’d never see a complicated set like you see today. So that audiences would know where each scene was set, the playwright would use the first few lines of the new scene to comment on the surroundings or time of day.

Costumes, too, were multi-functional.

Frequently a rich theater lover would donate their old clothes to the theater company. The theater would have a collection of clothes that they would use for costumes for all of their plays. It would be possible to see the same costume in several plays a year.

The original Globe Theatre burned to the ground in 1613 when a cannon shot during a performance of Henry VIII set the thatched roof on fire. A new Globe was built on the same location before Shakespeare’s death. The Globe and other theaters were always careful to make sure the authorities were happy as they could be shut down for any reason from offensive material, to threats to public safety – including the spread of the plague. The Globe was forced to close its doors 1642, when the Puritans closed all entertainment venues as they were viewed as immoral. The Puritans tore down the building in 1644 and built tenements at the location.

The Globe’s foundations were rediscovered in 1989, and plans to build a modern-day Globe Theatre were spearheaded by American actor Sam Wanamaker. Construction started in 1993 near the site of the original theater and was completed in 1996.

Queen Elizabeth II officially opened the theater on June 12, 1997 with a production of Henry V. Every effort was made to reproduce the Globe as faithfully as possible. But as there are no existing blueprints or plans, the new theater was based upon sketches and written descriptions of the original Globe. The modern Globe seats 1,500 people between the galleries and the groundlings. In its opening season, 210,000 spectators saw productions at the theater.

Shakespeare at the Movies If Shakespeare were alive today, you can bet that he’d be one of the greatest writer/directors in Hollywood history. Hollywood has turned to his plays time and again for inspiration. Here’s a list a movies that you may have seen which are based on Shakespearean plays:

Year 1953 1956 1957 1961 1961 1965 1983 1985 1991 1995 1996 1999 2000 2001 2001 2001 2001 2004 2006

Film Based on Kiss Me Kate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .The Taming of the Shrew Forbidden Planet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .The Tempest Throne of Blood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Hamlet Manchurian Candidate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Hamlet West Side Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Romeo and Juliet Chimes at Midnight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .The Merry Wives of Windsor Strange Brew . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Hamlet Ran . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .King Lear My Own Private Idaho . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Henry IV Green Eggs and Hamlet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Hamlet Romeo and Juliet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Romeo and Juliet 10 Things I Hate About You . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .The Taming of the Shrew Romeo Must Die . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Romeo and Juliet Macbeth: The Comedy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Macbeth My Kingdom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .King Lear O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Othello Scotland, PA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Macbeth Manchurian Candidate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Hamlet She’s the Man . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Twelfth Night

21

The Infamous Premiere of

22

Louis Mélançon, photographer.

Leontyne Price (b.

1927) as Cleopatra, 1966 New York WorldTelegram and Sun Newspaper Collection Prints & Photographs Division Courtesy of Leontyne Price (16.1) LC-DIG-ppmsca13518

Antony and Cleopatra With the success of Samuel Barber’s first full scale opera, Vanessa, the Metropolitan Opera in New York City turned to Barber again to write a grand opera to celebrate the opening its new home at Lincoln Center in 1966.

Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra was chosen as the subject. Its grand scale would be perfect for the opening of the new house.

Barber turned to Franco Zeffirelli, the famous Italian opera, stage and film director who had been contracted to direct the production, to write the libretto. Alvin Ailey would choreograph in his Met debut. And the opera would star soprano Leontyne Price as Cleopatra.

Zeffirelli, using only Shakespeare’s text, condensed, combined and deleted scenes and characters. The play’s five acts and forty-one scenes became an opera in three acts and sixteen scenes and over a dozen characters were dropped from the play’s cast of 35.

Zefirelli retains many of the play’s famous lines and gives opera very effective finales to each act. The Act I finale ends with Cleopatra appearing as a vision before Antony, Act II with the Antony’s suicide and Act III with the death scene of Cleopatra.

Zeffirelli designed a production that would show off all of the opera house’s new technology. Imagine giving yourself the biggest most expensive toy in the world and given the challenge to play with it and make sure everything worked. Well, that’s what Zeffirelli did and he brought the Met to a grinding halt even before the new house had opened. The new stage turntable broke down due to the weight of the sets and cast on it; Leonytne Price

found herself virtually entombed in a pyramid that wouldn’t open; lighting cues went wrong, and more as the company learned how to use the new state of the art equipment.

Opening night of Antony and Cleopatra on September 16, 1966 was one of the most infamous premieres in operatic history. It was the social event of the season and everyone wanted to see the new opera in the new opera house. Music critics from around the globe were there to report on event. Despite what seemed like a success, given the audience’s ovation when the curtain came down, critical reception was almost hostile, particularly towards the lavishness of Franco Zeffirelli’s sets. According to the New York Times’ Bernard Holland, the work was “crushed, to all appearances, beneath the grandeurs of Zeffirelli’s behemoth staging.” But even Barber’s lyrical, accessible music was labeled uninspired and irrelevant, especially when compared to his musically experimental contemporaries.

The poor reviews and harsh critcal reaction to the opera devastated Barber. He thought the opera had some of the best music he’d ever written. He turned to Gian Carlo Menotti to help edit and rework the opera. They removed many of the military scenes and concentrated on the opera that Barber had wanted to write - the story of two of the most famous lovers in history. Barber unveiled the revised opera at the Julliard School in 1975, but still the opera failed to catch on and since then has rarely been performed.

Barber continued to write new music, but not with the same acclaim he had when he was younger.

In later years the Pennsylvania-born composer became clinically depressed and an alcoholic. His friendship with Menotti had ended in 1973 and the home they had shared was sold. Barber moved to an apartment in New York City where he died of cancer in 1981 at the age of 70 with Gian Carlo Menotti at his side.

Antony and Cleopatra

Plot Synopsis PROLOGUE:

A chorus of Romans, Greeks, Patricians, Jews, and soldiers condemns the Roman General Antony for his life of luxury in Egypt and for his shameless behavior with the Egyptian queen Cleopatra.

ACT I: In Alexandria, Antony realizes that his life in Egypt with Cleopatra is making him weak and he tells his friend Enobarbus that he will go back to Rome. Cleopatra enters and the lovers bid a reluctant farewell. Back in Rome, Antony is greeted by the Senate but admonished by Caesar Octavius for neglecting his responsibilities and ignoring his requests for more troops. The Senator Agrippa tries to placate the argument and suggests that Antony marry Caesar’s sister Octavia as a demonstration of peace between the two men; Antony agrees. In her palace in Alexandria, Cleopatra pines for Antony and languishes over their separation. “Give me some music.” When a messenger brings news of Antony’s marriage, she punishes the messenger but takes pleasure when he says that Cleopatra is the more beautiful. In a Roman banquet hall the soldiers celebrate Antony’s marriage to Octavia and his reconciliation with Caesar. Antony asks Octavia to overlook his past discretions. Dorabella, Caesar’s emissary, says that now that he is married, Antony will have to end his relationship Cleopatra.

Enobarbus says that Antony will never be able to give up Cleopatra and recalls the first time the lovers met “When first she met Antony”. A vision of the queen appears as she calls out for Antony to return to her. Antony declares that he will return to Egypt.

ACT II:

Caesar rails against Antony’s desertion and tells the Senate that he has given Cleopatra Cyprus, Lydia, and lower Syria. He vows that Antony will pay the consequences and they prepare to go to war. In Cleopatra’s palace, her attendants have a soothsayer read their fortune and are told that they will outlive their mistress. Antony and Cleopatra enter and are interrupted by Enobarbus, who brings news that Caesar is advancing with the Roman army. As Antony leaves to go prepare his troops, Cleopatra intends to go with him but Enobarbus warns her that she is too much of a distraction for Antony. Cleopatra swears her revenge on Enobarbus and says that she will not be left behind. In Antony’s camp, the guards hear haunting music. They believe that it is Hercules, the god of war, abandoning his support of Antony. At dawn, Antony and Cleopatra

awaken and vow their love for each other. “Oh take, oh take those lips away” Despite her protests, Antony leaves to prepare his troops for battle, and Cleopatra gets her army ready as well. At the height of the battle, as the Egyptian army is being overrun, Cleopatra’s ships are seen in the distance, fleeing back to Alexandria. As his army is defeated, Antony is demoralized. “Hark! The land bids me tread no more upon it” In her palace, Cleopatra meets with Thidias, one of Caesar’s emissaries, to discuss the terms of surrender. Antony is furious and denounces the queen, suspicious that she has abandoned him for Caesar. Cleopatra flees to her monument and sends her attendant to tell Antony that she has killed herself. When he hears the news that she is dead, Antony begs his shield bearer Eros to kill him. Instead Eros kills himself. Antony retrieves the sword and stabs himself just as Cleopatra’s attendant enters to tell him that she is not really dead. Gravely injured, Antony asks to be carried to her.

ACT III: Anthony is brought to Cleopatra. The bid farewell just as he dies. Filled with despair, Cleopatra recounts a dream she had in which she saw Antony as the Emperor of Rome. Caesar arrives, assures Cleopatra that he no longer means her any harm, and mourns Antony’s passing. Dorabella, Caesar’s emissary, confesses to the queen that despite his reassurances, Caesar plans to lead her through the streets as a captive. Unwilling to accept this, Cleopatra summons a man to bring a basket full of poisonous snakes. Taking the snakes, Cleopatra and her two attendants commit suicide “Give me my robe, put on my crown” as everyone laments the loss of the immortal lovers.

23

There’s a Place for You at

24

Settlement Music School

Kevin Eubanks, Hollywood film composer Alex North, Star Wars director Irv Kershner, numerous members of The Philadelphia Orchestra (as well as musicians in orchestras around the country). Even scientist Albert Einstein was a Settlement Music School student! In fact, studies show that science and music use similar principles—so music lessons may help your math skills, too.

Famous Philadelphia-born actor Kevin Bacon took lessons at Settlement Music School. You can, too!

Settlement Music School is a community arts school that offers programs and activities in music, voice, dance and the related arts to help those interested achieve their greatest potential.

Settlement is dedicated to a belief that people of all ages, abilities, backgrounds, and financial circumstances deserve and will benefit from the high quality programs that Settlement offers.

Founded in 1908, the School began when two young volunteer teachers offered piano lessons for a nickel. The response was so huge they raised the price to a dime to hire more teachers. A full program of instruction soon took shape, encompassing all instruments and voice and taught by professionals, including members of the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Today, Settlement’s six branches reach all over Philadelphia and serve more than 9,000 pupils on site and another 6,000 through outreach programs. Students from every zip code in Philadelphia and the eight surrounding counties in Pennsylvania and New Jersey attend Settlement.

The school has four Philadelphia branches (West Philadelphia, Germantown, KardonNortheast, and the original South Philadelphia school - the Mary Louise Curtis branch in Queen Village); one in Jenkintown, Montgomery County; and the newest location in Camden, NJ. An impressive list of former Settlement students has gone on to exciting careers, including actor Kevin Bacon, jazz bassist Stanley Clarke, pianist Joey DeFrancesco, Tonight Show guitarist

Settlement is a vital force in the communities it serves. It brings together students from every walk of life, providing many with opportunities otherwise unavailable to them through scholarship and financial aid. Settlement Music School helps them not only to develop musical and artistic talents, but also to build self confidence and readiness for academic and other achievements.

Students who come here begin life-long friendships with other students who perform with them in ensemble and orchestra programs. One student, a current member of the Philadelphia Orchestra, still plays “gigs” on the side with a friend he met when he was 14 years old at Settlement.

Students’ work at Settlement puts them in touch with the best of themselves, the best of their neighbors, and the best that the world has to offer in creative expression. And, anybody, no matter what your skill or circumstance, is accepted. Call 215320-2600 or visit Settlement’s website at www.smsmusic.org for more information.

Settlement Music School Branches Mary Louise Curtis (215) 320-2600 416 Queen Street, Philadelphia, PA 19147 Germantown (215) 320-2610 6128 Germantown Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19144 Kardon-Northeast (215) 320-2620 3745 Clarendon Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19114 Jenkintown Music School (215) 320-2630 515 Meetinghouse Road, Jenkintown, PA 19046 West Philadelphia (215) 320-2640 4910 Wynnefield Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19131 Camden School of Musical Arts (856) 541-6375 531-35 Market Street, Camden, NJ 08102 Visit the Settlement Music School website at www.smsmusic.org.

A Sampling of

Careers in the Arts Accompanist Actor/Actress Advertising Director Announcer Architect Architectural Model Builder Artist Artistic Director Art Festival Coordinator Art Teacher Arts Administrator Arts Consultant Arts Ed. Curriculum Writer Audio Engineer (recording) Band Director Book Designer Book Illuminator Box Office Director Business Manager Casting Director Choir Director Choreographer Cinematographer Clothing Designer Comedian Commercial Artist Composer Computer Graphics Design Concert Singer Conductor Contract Specialist

Copyright Specialist Costume Buyer Costume and Mask Designer Creative Consultant Critic Cutter (costumes) Dancer Dialect Coach Dramaturg Draper (costumes) Dresser (theater) Extra (background actor) Fashion Designer First Hand (seamstress) Fundraiser (Development) Furniture Designer House Manager (theater) Illustrator (fashion, book, etc.)

Instrumentalist Librettist Lighting Designer Makeup Artist Manager (arts organizations) Master Electrician (stage) Model Builder Mold Maker Music Contractor Music Copyist and Transcriber Music Editor Music Librarian Music Teacher

Musician Musicologist Orchestrator Painter Producer (theater, TV, movies) Proofreader (music) Props Buyer Props Designer Public Relations Specialist Publicist Publisher Scene Painter Scenic Designer Sculptor Set Decorator Set Dresser Shop Foreman (stage) Singer Special Effects Coordinator Stage Carpenter Stage Director Stage Hand Stage Manager Stitcher (costumes) Stunt Coordinator Theater Director Ticketing Agent TV Camera Operator Vocalist Wardrobe Mistress Wigmaker

Active Learning What career would you consider interesting? Where do you think you could go to learn more about it? ________________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________________

25

26

So you want to sing like an

Opera Singer

Singing on the opera stage is a lot of hard work.

Singers are like athletes in that they are constantly training to perfect their voices. They ask their voices and bodies to do things that most of us without training can’t do; specifically, to sing incredibly intricate and difficult music and project their voice over a sixty piece (or more) orchestra and still be heard.

Singing begins with the human voice. The voice is a very versatile instrument. It can produce sounds that present a wide range of frequencies that we call pitches. Pitches can be high or low. Women can sing in the highest pitches and men in the lowest ones.

Our voices are also able to change in volume.

Sometimes we speak softly as when we are telling a secret. Other times we yell as if we were at a football game. These are some of the ways we can look at the human voice. But we can go deeper and see it as a gift of human biology.

Voices are powered by the air that is exhaled out of the lungs. The diaphragm, a muscle that separates the chest cavity from the abdomen, is used to control that flow of air. The abdomen is right behind the stomach muscles and contains the intestines, spleen, and other organs. It’s always important to breathe from the diaphragm. Inhaling deeply causes the diaphragm to lower while the ribs and stomach expand. The shoulders should not rise.

The diaphragm forces the air out when it contracts. When it does this, it causes the vocal chords to vibrate. The vocal chords are actually folds of fibrous bands that are stretched along the two sides of the larynx. The larynx is the body’s sound instrument. It is just below the ‘Adam’s apple.’

When we hum, talk, or sing, air passes through the larynx and it vibrates. As the air vibrates it creates a sound that is then shaped by the other parts of our bodies. This includes the mouth, tongue, teeth and lastly the lips.

Babies experiment with singing, laughing, screaming, and babbling. This is done to exercise the vocal chords and learn how to control them.

The pitch of the voice (how high or how low we speak) is created by them. Singers must masterfully control the flow of air through the vocal chords in the larynx. Each sung note is determined by how the chords are controlled. This is why singers have vocal exercises. It is so that they can quickly adjust to the demands of the music without thinking about it.

Soprano Sari Gruber as Norina in Donizetti’s Don Pasquale Photo: Kelly & Massa

Singers must learn how to shape their mouths to control the sound that comes out of it.

Specific sounds are controlled by the size and shape of the mouth. Think of the mouth and entire head as being like a megaphone. Singers use all open spaces in their mouths, sinuses, and skull like a megaphone to help project their voices. Singers raise the soft palate, located on the roof of your mouth towards the back, to help create the megaphone effect. An indicator that enough space has been created is that your uvula, or the little fleshy piece that hangs down in the back, is raised and it doesn’t dangle.

In opera, singers sing in many languages. So that singers are able to effectively communicate |their lines, they often work with language coaches.

Different languages demand various ways of expressing text. Each language has its own unique way of being enunciated.

Once a singer knows the science of singing, the singer must be careful to understand the music and the text of the song. Certain emotions can also demand certain ways of enunciating the text. In this way, the singer combines vocal techniques with the emotional context of the music to enhance the words. This process creates the passionate music we know as opera.

Experiment 1. Place a hole in the bottom of the cups.

2. Cut rubber bands so that they become long stretches of rubber.

3. Pull on the rubber band so that it vibrates. How does pitch change? Record your findings.

4. Tie the rubber band to a small object that is larger than the hole in the cup. (Paper clip) This object will act as a plug to the hole. Be sure to make a square knot on the object so that the pressure in the next step does not cause the knot to slip out and the object to be ejected from the cup.

5. Slide the rubber band through the small hole in the cup and pull it through until the object catches on the inside bottom of the cup.

6. Pull on the rubber band again so that it vibrates a second time. Record your findings.

7. In comparing the two sounds, what did you observe happen after the cup was added to the activity?

8. Place different sized cups into your experiment and record your findings.

9. Cover the cup opening with your hand. Pull on the rubber band. Record your findings.

Sound and Active Learning The vocal chords vibrate and create sounds that our mouth then forms so that we can talk or sing. Without our mouth we would only be able to express a sound similar to a hum. It is the mouth that is the sound shaper that produces our words and songs.

Our wind pipe is a tube though which the air is passed over the larynx. After the air picks up a vibrating sound from our vocal chords, the mouth enunciates the sound into words and projects the new text-added sound into the world. We can understand both of these as a human instrument.

We can make a model of our human instrument. Our model will not be able to shape the sounds into words, but it will express the various humming pitches necessary for words to be created.

The place of the vocal chords will be taken by a rubber band. The place of the mouth will be taken by various size paper or plastic cups.

10. See if you can get your cup to make sounds like a baby.

27

The Highs and Lows of the

28

Operatic Voice Did you ever wonder what the difference is between a soprano and a mezzo-soprano or what voice type can sing the highest note and the lowest?

Most opera singers fall into a voice type that reflects the singer’s vocal range as well as the dramatic requirements of singing a particular role. Above all the voice is an instrument - a human one. Opera singers spend much time learning correct singing techniques that allow them to sing without amplification. There is no grabbing a microphone and belting out arias in opera. All the sound that an opera singer produces is done through the sheer power of the human voice.

So how does one become a soprano, mezzosoprano, tenor, baritone, or bass, the five most common types of voices? Some of it has to do with the size of the vocal chords and the speed at which they vibrate. It also has to do with vocal range, which can be defined as the span from the lowest note to the highest note that a particular singer can produce. Vocal range is very important in opera singing. Two other things which are taken into consideration when determining a singer’s voice type are the consistency of timbre (sound quality or color of the voice) and the ability to project the voice over a full orchestra. Remember, there are no microphones in opera, and there are small, medium, large and extra large voices. Soprano Barbara Hendricks compares the differences in vocal types to the differences between a Mack truck and a Maserati.

She says “...one can haul a load, but the other can take the curves.”

Some terms that are used to describe operatic voices are:

Coloratura: typically a voice with a very high range with the ability to sing complicated passages with great agility.

Dramatic: a heavy, powerful voice with a steely timbre.

Lyric: an average size voice, but capable of singing long beautiful phrases.

Lyric spinto: a somewhat more powerful voice than that of a true lyric.

Helden: a German term referring to a powerful voice capable of singing very demanding roles.

Falsetto: the upper part of a voice, more often used in reference to male voices.

Let’s define a few of the voice types that audiences generally hear in opera: For females, the highest voice type is the soprano. In operatic drama, the soprano is almost always the heroine because she projects innocence and youth. Within this category, there are other sub-divisions such as, coloratura soprano, lyric soprano, and dramatic soprano. Each of these voices has particular lighter or darker voice qualities as well as differences in range. Some of the roles sung by these voice types include: the Queen of the Night in The Magic Flute (coloratura), Mimi in La bohème (lyric) and Ariadne in Ariadne auf Naxos (dramatic).

The mezzo-soprano has a lower range than the soprano. Many mezzo-sopranos sing the socalled “trouser” roles, portraying young boys or men, or they may be the villainesses or perhaps motherly types. This category is also sub-divided into coloratura mezzo, who can sing complicated fast music through a large range. The comedic heroines of Gioachino Rossini’s operas, such as Cinderella, The Barber of Seville, and The Italian Girl in Algiers, are well-suited for this voice type. The dramatic mezzo is most often found singing the operas of Giuseppe Verdi in roles such as Amneris in Aida, or Princess Eboli in Don

Carlo. One of the most well known roles for a dramatic mezzo is the fiery gypsy Carmen in the opera of the same name.

The contralto or alto is the lowest female voice and the darkest in timbre. This voice type is usually reserved for specialty roles like the earth goddess Erda in Richard Wagner’s Nordic fantasy-epic The Ring of the Nibelungen. Since this is such a rare voice type, dramatic mezzos often sing roles in this range.

Marian Anderson, a Philadelphia native, was one of the world’s most famous contraltos ever.

For males, the tenor is generally considered to be the highest male voice in an opera, and is most often the hero or the love interest of the story. His particular voice type determines which roles are best for him to sing.

There are many different types of tenor voices. Two of the more common ones are lyric tenors, whose voices have high, bright tones, and dramatic tenors whose voices have a darker sound with a ringing quality in the upper range. Two of the more famous roles for tenors include Rodolfo in La bohème (lyric) and Radames in Aida (dramatic).

A countertenor is able to sing even higher than a tenor. This voice actually falls within a female’s voice range. Through the use of a man’s falsetto voice, the voice produces a sound that is sometimes described as otherworldly.

A baritone is the most common type of male voice whose range is lies midway between the high tenor voice and the low bass voice. He can play several types of roles. In comedic operas, he is often the leader of the funny business, but he can also be the hero who sacrifices himself for the tenor or soprano, or sometimes, he is the villain. This voice has a dramatic quality capable of producing rich, dark tones. The hunchback court jester in the title role in Rigoletto (dramatic) and the

popular Toréador Escamillo in Carmen are favorite roles for baritones.

In general, a bass is the lowest and darkest of the male voices. The word bass comes from the Italian word basso, which means low.

Some singers in this category are referred to as bass-baritones because they have voices that range between the bass and the baritone voice. A bass is ideal for several types of roles.A basso serio or basso profondo portrays characters who convey wisdom or nobility such as Sarastro in The Magic Flute. In contrast, a basso buffo sings comedic roles such as Dr. Bartolo in The Barber of Seville.

So, no matter what the size, quality or range, a singer’s voice has the ability to thrill an audience with its sheer beauty and musicality.

Active Learning Let’s imagine that The Lord of the Rings had been made into an opera. What voice types would you cast in the major roles and why?

Frodo

Legolas

Sam

Gimli

Gandalf

Arwen

Saruman

Galandriel

Aragorn

Merry Pippin

Gollum

Eowyn

Sauron

Bilbo

29

Careers in the Arts

30

The Artistic Team creates everything you will see on stage. They spend hours studying the music, the libretto, and the opera’s historic context. It helps if they speak the language in which the opera is written. After their research is done, they ask themselves what the composer and librettist are saying about these characters and the subject to create a vision of how they will bring the opera to life.

The Artistic Team The Conductor is responsible for the interpretation of the music. He/she is respectfully referred to as Maestro, which in Italian means master or teacher. The conductor must be a very skilled musician. The Maestro works with the orchestra and the singers to interpret the music. Based on the composer’s instructions, he/she determines tempo, dynamics, and the musical expression of the opera.

He/she leads the orchestra during the performance, coordinating what is happening onstage with what is happening in the orchestra pit. It is important that the singers and the musicians watch the conductor at all times.

The Director ultimately brings to life what will be assembled onstage. After the director has studied the music, text, historical context, and any materials like books, plays or historical figures on which the opera might be based, he/she then turns to the designers and together they arrive at a concept. When rehearsals begin, the director helps bring the concept to life through the characters of the opera: how they move, how they behave, why they behave the way they do, how they interact with one another and the environment of the opera.

The Scenic Designer must have the vision and creativity of a visual artist and a knowledge and sense of theater. It is this person’s responsibility to create the surroundings in which the characters exist. The design of the scenery directly controls and influences the total visual effect of the opera. The scenic designer must work very closely with the rest of the creative team to devise a set that allows the production concept to be achieved and enhances the work of the performers, director and the other designers.

The Lighting Designer uses light to reveal form, and create mood, balance and focus. Light becomes a strong factor in the visual effect of design through the control of intensity, color and

distribution. A lighting designer is responsible not only for the general stage lighting but also for special effects such as lightning or explosions.

Lighting effects and instruments are controlled by a computer, so the lighting designer must know how to use and program lighting software and be an expert in the principals of electricity and design.

A Costume Designer is an essential part of the total visual effect. He/she must contribute to the concept by deciding how characters will look by what they are wearing. The costume gives us instant information about the characters in the opera. Are they young or old, rich or poor? The clothes have to be historically accurate, too. Opera often has lavish and elaborate costumes with many pieces to them. Often because of cost, an opera company may rent a complete set of costumes to fit the particular production.

The Wigs and Make-up Artists use the face and hair as a palette. They can alter the physical characteristics of a person – sometimes by making people appear younger or older than they are. This person is responsible for making the artists’ faces and hair look like the characters they are portraying.

The Production Team While the artistic team creates, the production team implements the decisions that are made by the artistic team. Each person has an area of responsibility to oversee. These people are detail oriented and have excellent communication skills to work as a team to accomplish the goals of the production.

The Production Manager schedules rehearsal time for the orchestra, chorus, principal singers, and technicians, and makes arrangements for the arrival of production staff, sets and costumes. He/she oversees the construction of new sets as well as supervising the stagehands at the theater.

The Chorus Master prepares the chorus musically. The chorus is the first of all the singers to begin rehearsal. Since most operas are sung in a foreign language, singers who do not speak the language must learn the words phonetically and memorize what they mean.

The Stage Manager and Assistant Stage Managers ensure the rehearsals and performance run smoothly. They keep track of the “who, what, where, and when” of the production. Who enters or exits, with what prop, wearing what costume, and when in the music. They cue the various stage technicians to change the set, lights, and where the props are needed. They follow the score and give a “Stand By” and a “Go.” Stage Managers are timekeepers and the problem eliminators.

The Assistant Director assists the director by writing down the stage blocking into a piano/vocal score. He/she must be able to keep track of the director’s instructions to hundreds of people onstage: why they move, where they move, and at what particular time in the music.

The Assistant Conductor plays the piano as a substitute for the orchestra during staging and music rehearsals. Obviously, this person must be an excellent pianist and be very familiar with the opera score. The accompanist follows the conductor’s direction and must have a lot of stamina, because the rehearsals are sometimes long and tiring.

Administrative Staff

The Music Director is the principal conductor of the Opera Company’s orchestra. It is his responsibility to improve the quality of the orchestra, hire new orchestra members, hire conductors for the operas which he is not conducting, make casting and repertoire recommendations to the General and Artistic Director, work out any cuts in the music.

The Managing Director is hired by the board of directors and is responsible for all of the business aspects of an opera company from Marketing and Public Relations, to Fund Raising and Education.

The Chief Financial Officer is responsible for managing the budget, preparing tax statements, and makes sure that everyone gets paid.

The Director of Development raises money to help fund the running of the Company. Ticket sales pay for less than half of the cost of producing opera.

The Director of Marketing and Communications oversees all promotional and ticket sales campaigns and maintains contact with press locally and from all over the world.

The Director of Community Programs coordinates all aspects of educational and outreach programs for students and adults, gives lectures within the community, and coordinates programming with the other directors and within the community.

Without the administration there wouldn’t be an opera. These people constitute the company that produces opera. They are the business people and the office workers. After all, opera is show business.

The Board of Directors is a group of men and women in the community who represent the contributors to the opera and help set policies.

The General and Artistic Director is responsible for planning all aspects of an opera production from choosing which operas to perform, which singers will be cast in the roles, designs for a production and the production team to be hired. He is also involved in crafting the Company budget and represents the Company in all contract negotiations with artists and all unions.

Production Manager Greg Prioleau reviews a set model for an upcoming production.

31

The Subtle Art of 32

Costume Design As costume director, Richard St. Clair’s job is to oversee each and every costume in the operas we perform. Each opera has its own special needs.

Sometimes we rent an entire production. This requires Richard to send out the physical measurements for each of our principal performers, the chorus members and any others who may be in the production.

Richard also designs costumes for our productions, and his crew builds them based on his sketches and instructions. This process usually takes at least six months. It begins when he meets with the director of the opera to discuss her or his ideas. Richard’s job is to match his creative insights with the goals of the director. To do this he seeks out visuals that offer interesting ideas. Many hours are spent at libraries and at home studying books of costume illustrations. He also studies art books and magazines. Once he has an idea of a design, he goes to fabric shops in New York and Philadelphia and gathers swatches of interesting fabrics. At this point, he will do little “thumbnail sketches” to show a director how he thinks the characters would look.

When he meets with the director, they will discuss the historical settings and the fabrics that he has collected. They then talk through the opera scene by scene and character by character as they look at Richard’s work. In this way, Richard learns exactly what the director needs and wants.

Costume Shop Foreman Elmo Struck works on the final gown worn by Cinderella in Rossini’s opera.

Costume Designer Richard St. Clair adjusts baritone Troy Cook’s costume for the OCP production of La bohème.

He then takes all this information, his research, thumbnail sketches, and swatches of fabrics, and makes the final costume sketches. Each sketch takes anywhere from one to ten hours, depending on the intricacy of the costume. Finally he shows the completed sketches to the director.

Once everything is approved, all of the fabric needed to create the costumes is purchased.

It is at this point that his crew of about six to eight people begins making the costumes. Some of his workers have special jobs. Some are gifted at making patterns; others are good at making hats, while still others are good at painting fabrics, and still others sew the fabrics into costumes. Each pattern and costume is made one at a time with one person in mind. When they sew a costume they call it “building,” and costumes are much heavier and sturdier than regular clothes. Many of the ladies costumes have full skirts and petticoats and boned corsets. His crew is excellent at historical pattern making and costume building.

Richard graduated from Pennsylvania State University in 1980. He received his Master of Fine Arts degree from Temple University in 1985. He is a member of United Scenic Artists and has been working with the opera since 1986. He has designed costumes for The Curtis Institute of Music, Metropolitan Opera Guild, Arden Theater, and many others.

Etymology: The Study of Words

33

The following exercises are designed to help you read more efficiently, by showing some examples of words derived from Greek and Latin roots. Once you understand these basic elements, you will start to see them appearing all around you. Below is a brief list of some very common roots that will help you with the exercises.

Roots, Suffixes and Prefixes anthropo- man claustro- confined contra- against cracy- rule demo- people dict- speak/spoken

ology- the study of phobia- fear of photo- light pyro- fire scope- examine thermo- heat

ex- out graph- write/written macro- large mania- obsession with meter- measuring device micro- small

Combining Exercise Many commonly used words are made up from combinations of Greek and Latin roots. Using the definitions above, complete each phrase by pairing an item from section A with an item from section B. B

A MICRO DEMO ANTHROPO PHOTO

CONTRA THERMO CLAUSTRO PYRO

OLOGY SCOPE GRAPH MANIA

METER CRACY DICT PHOBIA

1. The academic study of the origin and history of man is known as:

_________________________________________

2. A system of government in which the people rule themselves is:

_________________________________________

3. The fear of tight spaces is called:

_________________________________________

4. A device used to measure the temperature is called:

_________________________________________

5. An obsession with fire is called:

_________________________________________

6. An instrument which is used to examine very small objects is called: _________________________________________ 7. To speak against something is to:

_________________________________________

8. The physical representation of a captured image is called a:

_________________________________________

9. An unnatural fear of large groups of people is known as:

_________________________________________

10. A device used to measure very small distances is called a:

_________________________________________

Sequence of the Story

34

The sequence of a story or play is very important for understanding the content. The sequence of events explains how things happen and when they happen. After reading the libretto, place the following events in order.

Re-number the events from one to ten in the order that they occur in the opera. Write the act in which you find that event. _____

1.

Enobarbus tells Antony and Cleopatra that Caesar is advancing with the Roman army.

ACT ___.

_____

2.

Caesar tells the Senate that Antony has given Cleopatra Cyprus, Lydia, and lower Syria.

_____

3.

Antony is condemned for his luxurious lifestyle in Egypt and his romance with Cleopatra.

_____

4.

Cleopatra’s ships are seen in the distance, fleeing back to Alexandria.

_____

5.

Antony marries Caesar's sister Octavia.

_____

6.

Antony dreams that he sees Cleopatra and declares that he will return to Egypt.

_____

7.

Hearing the false report that Cleopatra has killed herself, Antony falls on his sword.

_____

8.

After leaving Cleopatra, Antony is admonished by Caesar for neglecting his responsibilities.

_____

9.

Antony leaves to prepare his troops for battle, and Cleopatra gets her army ready as well.

_____

10.

ACT ___.

ACT ___.

ACT ___.

ACT ___.

Cleopatra and her attendants use poisonous snakes to kill themselves.

ACT ___.

ACT ___.

ACT ___.

ACT ___.

ACT ___.

ACTIVE LEARNING Choose what you feel is the most important event in the sequence above and explain how, if changed, it would affect the other events. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (Use additional paper if necessary.)

Illustrate the most important event you have chosen or ask your teacher if you can act out the scene with your classmates. Discuss why you feel this scene is important with your classmates. How could you cause a change in this scene and affect the rest of the story’s plot? Discuss this new view of the opera with your classmates or write a new ending to the opera. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Make Your Own Synopsis A synopsis is a concise summary or brief statement of events. In writing a synopsis, the main points or ideas are written and the supporting details are left out. To do this successfully, we must make judgments on what are the most important facts or details.

Often you are asked after a day of school, “How was your day?” or “What did you learn today?” You know how to answer these questions because you know what the important things you did were.

Characters

35

1.

In a small group, examine the main characters of Antony and Cleopatra. How did the actions of the characters move the plot forward? What were the most important things which happened?

2.

Make a word bank of the main characters. List important adjectives which describe their character traits. Then list the verbs or action words which highlight their actions.

Descriptive Adjectives

Actions

___________________________

____________________

_________________________

___________________________

____________________

_________________________

___________________________

____________________

_________________________

___________________________

____________________

_________________________

___________________________

____________________

_________________________

___________________________

____________________

_________________________

Now write a brief account of the opera. Check it against the actual synopsis found on p. 23 of the activity book. See which member of your group wrote the most comprehensive synopsis. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Use additional paper if needed.

Recognizing Facts and Opinions

36

The following lessons are designed to be worked on in pairs. Pick a partner with whom you can answer the questions. After answering the questions, discuss your answers and the different opinions found in the questions. How do these opinions make you feel? How can facts be misused when backing up opinion?

1.

Read the following statements. Before each statement, write whether it is a fact or an opinion.

1. Charmian and Iras love Cleopatra. _____ 2. Antony decieved Cleopatra and married another Octavia. _____ 3. Enos feels loyalty towards Antony. _____ 4. If Antony had really been loyal to Rome, he would not have become involved with Cleopatra. _____ 5. Antony was a coward to kill herself. _____ 6. Caesar scolded Antony in the Senate for neglecting his responsibilities as a General. _____

2.

Write an opinion about each of the following topics. Support each opinion with two facts.

Love __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Betrayal __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Trust __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Antony __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Cleopatra __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Supporting Your Opinions 1. Write “I believe” or “I think” four times. Then complete each phrase with a different statement regarding the opera Antony and Cleopatra.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________

2.FIdentify which statements are fact and opinion by placing an ‘F’ or ‘O’ next to each one. Then combine the

two statements to make a sentence using the following connectives: since, because, therefore, thus, however.

O first one has been done for you.

The

_____ 1a. Roman General Antony loves the Egyptian Pharaoh Cleopatra. _____ 1b. Antony is disloyal to Rome.

Sentence: Roman General Antony loves the Egyptian Pharaoh Cleopatra, therefore she is disloyal to Rome. _____ _____

2a. Dorabella warn Cleopatra that Caesar would parade her through the streets as a prisoner.

2b. Dorabella was beguiled by Cleopatra’s beauty.

Sentence:______________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _____ _____

3a. Cleopatra was a great Pharaoh.

3b. She learned the language of the Egyptians.

Sentence:______________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _____ _____

4a. The soldiers fear that Hercules has lost his faith in Antony.

4b. They are foolish to believe in such myths.

Sentence:______________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _____ _____

5a. Charmian and Iras both kill themselves with an asp.

5b. They loved Cleopatra.

Sentence:______________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _____ _____

6a. Thinking that Cleopatra was dead, Antony killed himself.

6b. He should gotten proof before he fell on his sword.

Sentence:______________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________

37

38

Compose Your Own Review of Antony and Cleopatra Use this word bank for ideas when composing your own review of the opera. Don’t forget that you can log your review on our blog at http://operaphillysol.blogspot.com/ singing lighting props conductor

acting Cleopatra music orchestra

plot Barber set designer Antony

Caesar costumes set Egypt

Chorus Perelman Theater love asp

_____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________

How to Write Poetry Like the Bard

39

Shakespeare is probably most famous for his plays, such as The Merchant of Venice, but his sonnets are almost equally well known and admired. Shakespeare wrote 154 of these poems, most of which were published in a single collection and deal with themes such as love, beauty, youth and mortality.

The sonnet is a distinct form of poem that originated in Italy. By Shakespeare’s time, there was an English version of the sonnet as well. The English sonnet had a very specific formula that the poet usually followed: • Each sonnet has 14 lines made up of three quatrains (groups of four lines) and a final couplet (group of two lines). The final couplet often provides a surprise ending or final thought to the poem.

• The rhyme scheme for these lines is abab cdcd efef gg.

• Like Shakespeare’s plays, sonnets are written in iambic pentameter—each line has ten syllables with alternating short and long stresses. This pattern creates a rhythm in each line that sounds like di-DUM-di-DUM-di-DUM-di-DUM-di-DUM. Shakespeare’s use of this formula was so successful that the English sonnet is often referred to as the Shakespearean sonnet, regardless of who the poet is.

Here’s an example of one of Shakespeare’s most famous sonnets with elements of form labeled for you:

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate.

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date.

1st Quatrain

a b a b

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimm'd; 2nd Quatrain And every fair from fair some time declines, By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd;

c d c d

But thy eternal summer shall not fade Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st; Nor shall Death brag thou wand'rest in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:

e f e f

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

3rd Quatrain

Final Couplet

g g

Why not try writing your own sonnet? It’s not easy, but when you’re done you’ll be writing like the great poets do! You could write to or about a character in the opera or describe a scene or event in the story.

Character Analysis and Dramatic Motivation

40

We’ve heard the expression that actions speak louder than words. Actions reflect who we are by showing our motivations and intentions. In all forms of drama, whether it is a book, play, movie, comic book, or opera, characters have some sort of motivation in order to advance the action or plot of the story.

The actions in our everyday lives are also based upon motivation such as: desire for better grades; desire to be a good friend; desire to please our parents; desire to buy a CD, or DVD, or computer game, etc. Write down your thoughts on the topics below and discuss some of them with your classmates:

1. Describe Cleopatra’s personality. What characteristics does she show based upon her actions or motivations? ________________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________________

2. Describe how Ceasar acts towards Cleopatra and Antony. ________________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________________

3. What do you think motivates Ceasar to act as she does towards Cleopatra and Antony? ________________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________________

4. Antony’s wife in Rome, Italy does not appear in the opera. How do you think he treats her and acts around her? ________________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________________

5. What kinds of motivation do these characters demonstrate: Caesar: _________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________________ Antony: _________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________________ Enobarbus: _______________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________________ Iras:

_______________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Conflicts and Loves in Antony and Cleopatra Draw a picture of Antony in the middle circle. In the outer circles, draw a picture of those individuals with whom he has a direct relationship. Then in the boxes pointing toward the middle circle, write how that individual feels about the central character. In the boxes pointing to the outer circles, write how Cleopatra feels about that individual.

41

42

What Happens Next?/Alternate Endings Using the space below, write what you think will happen next to the characters in Antony and Cleopatra.

Alternatively, you could write a new ending for the libretto based on what you would have liked to have seen to the characters.

____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________

Ask Why?

?

Have you ever watched a movie or tv show and wondered why something happened or why someone acted they way they did? Sometime things happen that are too coincidental to be realistic, or characters don’t act or react in realistic ways.

Take a moment to write five questions about the opera Antony and Cleopatra all starting with the word why and how. You can ask questions about a character’s motivation, about the production’s setting of place and time, and about sets and costumes. Once you’ve completed your questions, teachers can use these questions to begin a discussion about the opera.

WHY ___________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________

WHY ___________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________

WHY ___________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________

WHY ___________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________

WHY ___________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________

HOW ___________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________

43

44

Pennsylvania Department of Education Academic Standards Pennsylvania’s public schools shall teach, challenge and support every student to realize his or her maximum potential and to acquire the knowledge and skills needed to: Academic Standards for Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening 1.1. Learning to Read Independently GRADE 5 D. Identify the basic ideas and facts in text using strategies (e.g., prior knowledge, illustrations and headings) and information from other sources to make predictions about text. 1.1.8. GRADE 8 E. Expand a reading vocabulary by identifying and correctly using idioms and words with literal and figurative meanings. Use a dictionary or related reference. 1.1.11. GRADE 11 H. Demonstrate fluency and comprehension in reading. Read a variety of genres and types of text. Demonstrate comprehension. 1.2. Reading Critically in All Content Areas GRADES 5, 8, 11. A. Read and understand essential content of informational texts and documents in all academic areas. 1.3. Reading, Analyzing and Interpreting Literature GRADE 5 E. Analyze drama as information source, entertainment, persuasion or transmitter of culture. 1.3.8. GRADE 8 E. Analyze drama to determine the reasons for a character’s actions, taking into account the situation and basic motivation of the character. 1.3.11. GRADE 11 E. Analyze how a scriptwriter’s use of words creates tone and mood, and how choice of words advances the theme or purpose of the work. 1.4. Types of Writing GRADES 5, 8, 11. GRADE 5 A. Write poems, plays and multi-paragraph stories (GRADES 8 & 11 - and short stories). 1.4.5, 8, 11.

C. Write persuasive pieces (Review of Opera Experience, p. 78). 1.5. Quality of Writing GRADES 5, 8, 11 A. Write with a sharp, distinct focus.

1.6. Speaking and Listening GRADES 5, 8, 11. B. Listen to selections of literature (fiction and/or nonfiction).C. Speak using skills appropriate to formal speech situations. E. Participate in small and large group discussions and presentations. F. Use media for learning purposes. 1.8.

Research GRADES 5, 8, 11. A. Select and refine a topic for research. B. Locate information using appropriate sources and strategies. C. Organize, summarize and present the main ideas from research.

Academic Standards for Mathematics 2.1. Numbers, Number Systems and Number Relationships 2.1.8. GRADE 8 A. Represent and use numbers in equivalent forms (e.g., integers, fractions, decimals, percents, exponents, scientific notation, square roots). 2.2. Computation and Estimation 2.2.5. GRADE 5 A. Create and solve word problems involving addition, subtraction, multiplication and division of whole numbers. 2.5 Mathematical Problem Solving and Communication 2.5.11. GRADE 11 A. Select and use appropriate mathematical concepts and techniques from different areas of mathematics and apply them to solving non-routine and multi-step problems.

Academic Standards for Science and Technology 3.1. Unifying Themes 3.1.10. GRADE 10 E. Describe patterns of change in nature, physical and man made systems. •Describe how fundamental science and technology concepts are used to solve practical problems (e. g., momentum, Newton’s laws of universal gravitation, tectonics, conservation of mass and energy, cell theory, theory of evolution, atomic theory, theory of relativity, Pasteur’s germ theory, relativity, heliocentric theory, gas laws, feedback systems). 3.2. Inquiry and Design GRADE 7 Apply process knowledge to make and interpret observations. GRADE 10 Apply process knowledge and organize scientific and technological phenomena in varied ways. GRADE 12 Evaluate experimental information for appropriateness and adherence to relevant science processes. 3.3. Biological Sciences 3.3.10. GRADE 10 D. Explain the mechanisms of the theory of evolution. 3.7. Technological Devices 3.7.7. GRADE 7 E. Explain basic computer communications systems. Describe the organization and functions of the basic parts that make up the World Wide Web. (Check operaphila.org to see photos of the rehearsals and sets.) See Teacher’s Guide for additional science lessons.

Academic Standards for Civics and Government 5.2. Rights and Responsibilities of Citizenship 5.2.12. GRADE 12 C. Interpret the causes of conflict in society and analyze techniques to resolve those conflicts.

Academic Standards for Geography 7.1. Basic Geographic Literacy 7.1.6. GRADE 6 A. Describe geographic tools and their uses. •Basis on which maps, graphs and diagrams are created. 7.3. The Human Characteristics of Places and Regions 7.3.6. GRADE 6 B. Explain the human characteristics of places and regions by their cultural characteristics.

Academic Standards for History 8.2. Pennsylvania History 8.2.9. GRADE 9 8.2.12. GRADE 12 Pennsylvania’s public schools shall teach, challenge and support every student... skills needed to analyze the interaction of cultural, economic, geographic, political and social relations to. A. Analyze the... cultural contributions of individuals... to Pennsylvania history from 1787 to 1914. • Cultural and Commercial Leaders (e.g., Academy of Music architects Napoleon Le Brun & Gustav Rungé, opera star Marian Anderson). 8.3. U.S. History 8.3.9 GRADE 9 B. Identify and analyze primary documents, material artifacts and historic sitesimportant in United States history from 1787 to 1914. • Historic Places (e. g., Academy of Music). 8.4. World History 8.4.6 GRADE 6 A. Identify and explain how individuals and groups made significant political and cultural contributions to world history. 8.4.12. GRADE 12 C. Evaluate how continuity and change throughout history has impacted belief systems and religions since 1450 C.E. Academic Standards for the Arts and Humanities 9.1. Production, Performance and Exhibition of Dance, Music,Theatre and Visual Arts A. Know and use the elements and principles of each art form to create works in the arts and humanities. I. Know where arts events, performances and exhibitions occur and how to gain admission. 9.2. Historical and Cultural Contexts C. Relate works in the arts to varying styles and genre and to the periods in which they were created (e.g., Renaissance, Classical, Modern, Post-Modern, Contemporary...). D. Analyze a work of art from its historical and cultural perspective. E. Analyze how historical events and culture impact forms, techniques and purposes of works in the arts. F. Know and apply appropriate vocabulary used between social studies and the arts and humanities.

The School District of Philadelphia School Reform Commission Robert L. Archie Jr., Esq., Chairman

Sounds of Learning™ was established by a generous grant from The Annenberg Foundation.

Denise McGregor Armbrister, member Joseph A. Dworetzky, member Amb. David F. Girard-diCarlo, Ret., member Johnny Irizarry, member Dr. Arlene C. Akerman

Superintendent of Schools

Pamela Brown

Interim Chief Academic Officer

Dennis W. Creedon, Ed.D. Administrator, Office of Creative and Performing Arts

Opera Company of Philadelphia Robert B. Driver

Artistic Director

Corrado Rovaris Music Director

David B. Devan

Executive Director

Michael Bolton

Director of Community Programs

Opera Company of Philadelphia Corporate Council ADVANTA KPMG Park Hyatt Philadelphia at the Bellevue Pennsylvania Trust Quaker Chemical Sunoco Wachovia Wealth Management Wyeth

The Opera Company of Philadelphia is supported by major grants from The William Penn Foundation, The Pew Charitable Trusts, and The Lenfest Foundation.

Additional support is provided by the Independence Foundation and the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation.

The Opera Company of Philadelphia receives state arts funding support through a grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Dedicated funding for the Sounds of Learning™ program has been provided by: $20,000 to $49,999 Glenmede Hamilton Family Foundation Lincoln Financial Group Foundation Presser Foundation Universal Health Services

Written and produced by: Opera Company of Philadelphia Community Programs Department ©2010 1420 Locust Street, Suite 210 Philadelphia, PA, U.S.A. 19102 Tel: (215) 893-3600, ext. 6102460 Fax: (215) 893-7801 www.operaphila.org/community Michael Bolton

Director of Community Programs

bolton@operaphila.org Aedín Larkin

Community Programs Intern

$10,000 to $19,999 The ARAMARK Charitable Fund at the Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program Citizens Bank Foundation Ellis A. Gimbel Charitable Trust Ethel Sergeant Clark Smith Memorial Fund Eugene Garfield Foundation GlaxoSmithKline Foundation Hirsig Family Fund Morgan Stanley Foundation The Patricia Kind Family Foundation PNC Bank Foundation Samuel S. Fels Fund

larkin@operaphila.org Special thanks to: Robert B. Driver

Dr. Dennis W. Creedon

Creator, Sounds of Learning™ Curriculum Consultant

Laura Jacoby Tullo Migliorini Kimmel Center Ushers Debra Malinics Advertising

Design Concept

Kalnin Graphics $5,000 to $9,999 Alpin J. & Alpin W. Cameron Memorial Trust Bank of America Charitable Foundation McLean Contributionship Sheila Fortune Foundation Wachovia Foundation $1,000 to $4,999 Dolfinger-McMahon Foundation Louis N. Cassett Foundation Reading Anthracite Company

Printing

Center City Film and Video R. A. Friedman The Historical Society of Pennsylvania Free Library of Philadelphia Print and Picture Department

2009 2010

Opera Company of Philadelphia

1420 Locust Street, Suite 210, Philadelphia, PA 19102 T (215) 893-3600 F (215) 893-7801 www.operaphila.org

OPERA at the Academy Madama Butterfly

Tea: A Mirror of Soul

La Traviata

October 9, 11m, 14, 16, 18m

February 19, 21m, 24, 26, 28m

May 7, 9m, 12, 14, 16m

2009

2010

2010

OPERA @ the Perelman Antony & Cleopatra *

Orphée & Euridice

March 17, 19, 21m

June 19m, 23, 25

2010

2010

* The Kimmel Center Presents Curtis Opera Theatre’s production in association with Opera Company of Philadelphia