San Francisco Opera and the San Francisco Opera Guild both provide programs for K-12 classrooms and educators. Please choose a link below to learn more about these opportunities to connect opera education to your curriculum.
San Francisco Opera K-12 Programs: Opera ARIA (Arts Resources in Action)
San Francisco Opera Guild Programs
The programs and resources below are offered by both the San Francisco Opera Education Department and the San Francisco Opera Guild Education Department.
Student Dress Rehearsals
Education Materials
War Memorial Opera House Tours
San Francisco Opera K-12 Programs: Opera ARIA (Arts Resources in Action)
After a semester of investigation into the needs of the school community and a semester of pilot testing, San Francisco Opera launches its groundbreaking Opera ARIA programs, aimed at connecting professional artistic and creative elements of opera with classroom curricula. With a methodology focused on empowering educators to work with both the Opera and their own colleagues to develop curriculum connections, and connections to the California State Arts and Academic Standards, the Opera ARIA programs all stem from three key principles:
- a sustained, multi-step partnership between educators and an Opera teaching artist,
- a high level of flexibility for the educators, in content and curricular connections, and
- in-depth professional development for all participating educators.
ARIA Network (Grades K-8)
The Opera ARIA Network applies the ARIA principles in an environment of long-term, collective, cross-school learning. Classroom teachers participate in extensive professional development and collaborate with Opera Teaching Artists to connect San Francisco Opera resources to their curriculum over the course of one or more school years.
PEAK (Practicing Everyday Arts Knowledge-Grades 9-12)
San Francisco Opera’s new High School program will eventually take the ARIA concept to the whole-school level. PEAK will integrate opera’s multi-disciplinary characteristics into a cross-subject curriculum, utilizing a specific opera as a prism to explore the connection of a number of subjects to a single artwork (e.g. Otello or Faust).
ARIA Residency (Grades K-8)
The Opera ARIA Residency program applies the ARIA principles, and lessons learned in the Network program, but is a less intensive program for schools unable to join the more thorough Network. The Residency focuses on connecting one artistic and creative element of opera with classroom curricula.
ARIA Professional Development Course for Educators (Grades K-18)
San Francisco Opera recognizes that not all educators will be able to commit to the long-term, multi-touch requirements of the ARIA programs. For these educators, the Opera will offer a series of professional development programs for K-18 educators tailored to specific grade levels and aimed at providing general tools to allow educators to connect the study of opera in general, and current SFO productions in particular, to their classroom curricula/syllabi.
To learn more about all the Opera ARIA programs, please click here.
For more information, or to be added to our mailing list, please contact the San Francisco Education Department at sfoeducation@sfopera.com or at 415-551-6294.
San Francisco Opera Guild Programs
San Francisco Opera Guild programs are designed to correlate with the Visual and Performing Arts Frameworks for the State of California. We provide a full menu of offerings to immerse students in Opera Arts, grades K-12. In-school programming is centered on interaction between students and artists, as well as active student participation. Focusing on the story and how it is transformed musically, each program serves to inform, entertain, foster greater artistic understanding, and provide an entry point to other aspects of opera, its component arts and other subjects. For more information on any of the following programs, please contact San Francisco Opera Guild Education at 415-565-3238 or education@sfopera.com.
Sing a Story: (Grades K- 3)
San Francisco Opera Guild’s exciting entry into the world of Opera! Each classroom visit will enchant and educate younger students and leave a lasting impression!
Opera à La Carte: (Grades 3 thru 8)
San Francisco Opera Guild's condensed version of an opera sung in English. This program is participatory, and requires 2-6 weeks of in-class preparation culminating in a school assembly with professional singers and musicians!
Book to Bravo: (Grades 5-8)
Our newest program, offered in the fall or spring as either a continuation of the Opera à la Carte experience, or as a stand alone program, is a seasonal residency in which a team of teaching artists come to your classroom and help students create an original opera based on a myth or folk tale rooted in the curriculum of the class. Our artists will teach the basics of performance storytelling, libretto writing, and simple composition. The opera will then be cast, rehearsed, and performed in front of the school! Students will have the chance to see how a story becomes an opera and how a written piece comes alive on stage!!
Creative Opera Workshop: (Grades 9-12)
This exciting program is an interactive classroom experience for teens in which a teaching artist collaborates with the classroom teacher, making curricular connections to an opera that is being offered as a student dress rehearsal. There are four classroom visits scheduled in which the artist introduces the world of the opera, the history, and a tie-in to the class curriculum. This short-term artist residency is highlighted by professional singers at one classroom visit. The 2009-10 season will be featuring Otello by Guiseppi Verdi and Faust by Charles Gounod!
Opera Training
Opera Arts Summer Conservatory (Ages 10-17)
DOWNLOAD FORM HERE
Come Sing, Dance, Act, and learn with us this summer! Our exciting summer program will immerse young performers in the Opera Arts. Culminates in a performance of a chamber opera!
Opera Performances
Student Dress Rehearsals: (Grades 3 thru 12)
Students from throughout Northern California come to the Opera House to attend final dress rehearsals of a Season's main stage production. All final dress rehearsals feature San Francisco Opera main stage artists and/or resident Adler Fellows Teachers’ Guides and Resource Books along with introductory CDs are available for all offerings.
Madeline H. Russell Night At The Opera: (Grades 9 thru 12)
A formal event exclusively for Bay Area high school students is held at the Opera House in conjunction with the final dress rehearsal of a Season's main stage production.
Education Materials
The San Francisco Opera Education Department and San Francisco Opera Guild offer Education Materials to help teachers connect opera performances to their classroom curriculum. Please click here to find the appropriate materials for your classroom.
Opera House Tours (Grades 4-12)
Students receive a tour of the War Memorial Opera House. For more information contact our tour coordinator, Lynn Watson, at 415-648-5327 or sf.opera.tours@gmail.com.
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