COC’s Opera Makers and Sistema Toronto teach young people how to create an opera

The Canadian Opera Company (COC) wants to make opera relatable to young people.

Last year’s Opera for Young Audiences was an engrossing Joel Ivany-directed production of Hansel and Gretel by 19th Century composer Engelbert Humperdinck. Sung in English and set in a downtown Toronto apartment complex, the show employed digital storytelling and video projections, and explored the topics of poverty and food insecurity. This modern interpretation made a centuries-old opera accessible to young Toronto audiences who saw real, topical concerns reflected on stage. The family on stage might have been fictional, but they clearly inhabited the same world as we do – and they were closer to reality than the families we usually see on the operatic stage. Not your usual opera, the production was a runaway hit.

In addition to keeping their productions in step with the times, the COC maintains a social conscience on and off the stage, and keeps young people top of mind. Case in point: one of COC’s new community partnerships is with Sistema Toronto, a social development organization that enacts transformative social change by providing free musical and educational opportunities to children in underserved communities. Under the partnership, teaching artists from the two organizations collaborate on weekly online workshops as part of Sistema Toronto students’ regular online music education.

Although the formal partnership is recent, Sistema Toronto has had a long-running relationship with the COC, explains Alex McLeod, who is Academic Manager and Parkdale Centre Director for Sistema Toronto and also violist of the Ton Beau String Quartet. In the past, the COC invited Sistema Toronto students to events and dress rehearsals, and offered free tickets for families to attend performances. The companies had been discussing ways to give students of Sistema Toronto a more immersive experience of opera, and how to make the collaboration have more of a lasting impact through workshops. 

Enter the idea of an online version of Opera Makers. After the COVID restrictions began to grab hold of all aspects of life in early 2020, Sarah Forestieri, COC’s Manager of Community Programs & Partnerships, contacted Toronto-based composer Saman Shahi to brainstorm ways to continue programming with the students: shortly after, they “began, alongside many of the other teaching artists, creating an online program called ‘Opera Makers’ that, through a course of eight weeks, focused on an aspect of opera.”

“It was a natural fit for Sistema Toronto and the Canadian Opera Company to work together,” agrees Soprano Makenzie Morgan, COC’s Interim Manager of Organizational Partnerships and Programs. As the company continued to reimagine programming during this unprecedented time, the decision was made to house Opera Makers under Opera For Toronto programming, a pillar of COVID-19 programming Opera Everywhere. The goal was to celebrate local artists and arts organizations through digital concerts and programs. Sistema Toronto’s program began running online classes immediately after the schools were closed in March, so they had enough experience to know they would be able to make it work in their online format.

Beyond the obvious musical skills and knowledge, this initiative provides students with artistic approaches for addressing real-world issues that are relevant to them. Throughout each program, the students’ engagement with social issues stood out to MacLeod. For instance, “the themes of gender identity and generational change were really important to them, and they were eager to find ways to build those themes into the characters, plot, and setting.” 

Learning about opera production also teaches students fundamental life skills. In Shahi’s words, “opera is all about storytelling and having the courage to express what one is feeling”. By creating stories, directing their meaning and deciding on their narrative, students learn to search inside and really think about the work. In Morgan’s view, the heart of opera is relationships, so understanding how relationships work together to bring an opera to life was integral to the success of the project. For this reason, Opera Makers was designed as a co-creation program that promotes and facilitates collaboration and community. During the project, the students learned the skills of “understanding how to effectively communicate ideas, how to be a team player, and how to take initiative in solving problems”. All are transferable skills that will help to prepare them for the workforce. 

Ultimately, “the most important part of this project for our students is giving them a central creative role in the production,” MacLeod affirms. This responsibility turns them from passive participants into active creators with an agency that builds confidence and deepens engagement with the material. Morgan adds that “when students’ voices are heard and valued, they feel safe. When they feel safe, students respond in sharing and contributing to the common goal.” At the same time, participants “develop a sense of autonomy and leadership which contribute greatly to their success”. 

“It’s one thing to say you saw an opera, but quite another to think of yourself as part of the team that created one,” notes MacLeod. “Helping students understand that their ideas and creative decisions have value is part of how they will become engaged, empowered, and hopefully outspoken adults.” And Shahi points to one final, ultra- practical aspect of opera: “it’s ALWAYS hectic: so many moving parts!” As a result, students develop the important skill of self-management: “They learn how to take on responsibility, ask for support when they need it, and also be autonomous in completing their tasks.”

Being active agents in the creative process also shifts the students’ perceptions of opera, enabling them to propel the artform forward. For Shahi, it was important to acknowledge the history of opera but also talk about how it has changed. “It’s up to all of us to decide how to define opera going forward”, says MacLeod. In keeping with these ideas, it is ultimately up to the students to define and describe what opera can be. And “whatever they contributed to the process of creating an opera is just as valid a part of opera culture and history as anything that has happened in the past.” 

As a visible minority and also as a former teacher, Morgan has always been committed to designing curriculum with equitable and inclusive practices. She believes that a “huge part of the importance of culturally responsive pedagogy is not only in highlighting diversity of thought, global perspective and understanding the student’s frame of reference. It is also about seeing the similarities that we all share as human beings. To see that we are closer to each other than we are far apart.” 

In Opera Makers, the teaching artists focused on two distinct expressive storytelling devices: recitatives and spoken word. As Morgan points out, the devices are derived from completely different worlds, but serve the same purpose. And the direct similarities between the two helped to build out the libretto. Shahi describes how discussion about arias and recitatives connected directly to the use of spoken word as a tool in a modern opera. Like the devices they use, “the stories we tell can be modern, and can be related to the struggles we are facing that might be unique to our time and to our communities.” And in Morgan’s estimation, there is a lot at stake: “discovering new pathways and experiences in learning about opera is what will make opera relevant and accessible for everyone. I truly believe that opera in the 21^st century is beginning to provide new entry points in breaking down cultural barriers and elitist perceptions of the art form.” It won’t happen overnight, but the COC and Sistema Toronto have created a change agent that Morgan feels “very proud” to be a part of.

Such deep discussion almost obscures the fact that the 2020 project was conducted entirely online. MacLeod admits that it was “very, very difficult, especially working on music.” It was an extreme challenge “having to create and learn music without ever being able to sing together, or even hear two different voices at the same time.” The teachers who made this all work “should all be given a medal,” he insists. That medal would recognize the teachers’ creativity in leveraging online educational tools and software – most notably Jamboard, Canva and Sketchpad – to teach, promote interactive engagement, and drive the project forward. 

Shahi is most appreciative that, despite the pandemic-mandated challenge of running this program online, the final result was a “beautiful, heartfelt, and meaningful production”. ”I think the COC Opera Makers is all about community building, and I am thrilled that we managed to keep that going.”

Watch the opening song from the Opera Makers and Sistema students’ virtual opera Change of Heart here. 

Opera Makers continues in spring 2021 with Opera Makers: In Partnership with Building Roots and YEA!, weekly from March 29 to June 21, 2021. Youth can also participate in Spring Break at the COC: Exploring New Opera, daily from April 12 to April 16, 2021, hosted by COC Opera Teaching Artist Makenzie Morgan.

© Arpita Ghosal, SesayArts Magazine, 2021