The Teacher’s Guide

adapted and directed by Kristine McIntyre ■ set design by

Curt Enderle ■ costume design by Sue Bonde ■

Spanish translations by Andrea Flores

curriculum written and compiled by Alexis Hamilton

We wish to thank the following, without whom

Portland Opera To Go would not be possible:

The Autzen Foundation

Bank of America Foundation

Burlington Northern Santa Fe Foundation

NW Natural

PGE Foundation

Robert D. and Marcia H. Randall Charitable

Trust

RBC Wealth Management

Schnitzer Steel Industries, Inc.

The Wheeler Foundation

U.S. Bancorp Foundation

Portland Opera appreciates the continuing support of The Regional Arts and Culture

Council, Work for Art, Oregon Arts Commission, The National Endowment for the Arts

and the Oregon Cultural Trust. Portland Opera is a member of OPERA AMERICA.

Why is Portland Opera To Go here, and how is opera relevant

to my classroom?

Inspire Enliven Activate Renew

Dear Teachers, Thank you for taking the time to read this letter and consider using our curriculum in your classroom. I guess the first question you may have is what exactly is opera? The simplest answer is that, as we tell the kids, opera is a play that is sung. Even more simply, it is storytelling through song. Song is an ancient art form—possibly one of the very earliest—with some musicologists theorizing that music came into existence when humans developed “intentionality” some 60,000 years ago. It is that “intentionality” that makes opera—and art in general—relevant in your classroom. Children have an innate interest in stories, in music, in creating, and by telling stories, making music, and drawing pictures, our students learn. Myriad studies have been done connecting the practice of the fine arts with brain development. In fact, the practice of art changes the brain. Arts in the classroom—your classroom—have the power to increase attention and enhance student cognition. More importantly, arts in the classroom underscore what you are trying to teach, help to reach students for whom paper and pencil work is less effective, provide students with the opportunity to demonstrate what they know, and, frankly, make learning fun. But is it hard to integrate art into the classroom? It can feel that way if the testing culture increases the pressure to “teach to the test,” or if a curriculum allows no room for creativity. That is when we need an act of courage! We need the courage to know that when students internalize knowledge and master curriculum, they test well. Mastery leads to being able to apply knowledge across a broad range of applications, just as opera applies to a wide variety of curricular connections, touching literary arts, history, social science, math and science, in addition to poetry, music, visual arts, dance, and aesthetics. When students see the connectivity of what they are doing, seeing and experiencing, they learn—and remember what they learn. It can also feel hard to integrate arts into your classroom if you don’t feel qualified to do so. Within this Teachers Guide, you will find lesson plans that will allow you to integrate opera into your classroom seamlessly. You will also find background information for yourself so that you can confidently walk into your classroom and answer questions about opera from its history, to its composers, to specifics about The Barber of Seville, from the composer and the librettist to its

What is THAT?!!

major themes. In addition, you will find that our worksheets are available to your students in both English and Spanish. Portland Opera believes that opera is the most exciting and visceral way to tell a story, and we know that it isn’t “mainstream.” The singing style may not appeal to everyone at first, but it communicates emotion in a universal way that is not bound by language. We want to get opera out there in front of our children to inspire the next soprano, conductor, or stage director and develop the audiences of our future. We want to shake up the school day (brain science also indicates that learning the same thing many different ways, in different venues makes the learning “stick!”), and enliven both students and teachers with renewed enthusiasm. We want to create an opera prism through which all curriculums can be explored in a new, fresh way. We want to activate the artistry of others—yours and your students—and extend the teaching and learning repertoires of teachers and students. We hope, above all, that our presentation at your school inspires you and your students. Please feel free to copy any of the material in this packet for distribution to your students and colleagues. You may, of course, adapt any of these materials to better suit your needs. I mentioned “courage” above. In closing, I would like to share something that I learned at the 2012 Oregon Arts Summit. “Bravo” is a term that came out of opera houses, and has come to mean, essentially, “Wonderful! Fantastic! Amazing!” That is a great meaning, but, originally, it meant something more. It was called out to a performer who took a risk—successful or no—and reached beyond him or herself to increase their communicative power. How wonderful to celebrate the courage it takes to risk failing in front of others in order to reach greater heights! That is what the arts in the classroom can do by creating a culture that allows “failure” in an environment which celebrates striving, risking—dare I say it—learning. I hope you will establish a “Bravo Policy” in your classrooms, and encourage that kind of striving. In the meantime, bravo to you. Enjoy our presentation at your school. Very truly yours,

Alexis Hamilton Manager of Education & Outreach Portland Opera

The Teacher’s Guide Table of Contents

For the Teacher: Background

Opera in General:

Opera: A Crash Course The Indispensable Composers Why Do They Sound Like That Opera Vocabulary

Information Specific to The Barber of Seville

Origins: Un Fiasco Magnifico Meet the Composer: Gioachino Rossini Context: What is bel canto? What is a factotum? Who Was Beaumarchais? What about the Play?

Lesson Plans:

Language Arts

Elementary Language Arts:

Casting Director: Cast an opera based on a familiar story, using known character traits and operatic conventions

Everyone’s a Critic: Writing your own review of an opera performance

How to Write an Opera: How to write your own opera (or at least a really good start!)

People Postcards: Sequencing a story by creating tableaux

Jr. High & High School Language Arts:

Libretto vs. Play: Comparing story-telling across genres Translations: Libretto, Poem and Modern Prose What Happens Next? Writing a sequel to The Barber of Seville

Social Studies:

Mark Your Territory: Read and create a diseño Know Your Boundaries: Measurement with a reata Make It Pay: The economy of the rancho Brand Recognition: Designing and recognizing a cattle brand

Mathematics:

Mathmusician: Addition & Subtraction Mathmusician: Fractions Technical Director: Calculating cost and creating a “set”

Worksheets

English Language

A Little Bit About Opera, Part I A Little Bit About Opera, Part II Rossini in a Nutshell A Little Bit About Alta California A Little Bit About Barbers Practical Math with Figaro

Spanish Language

Un poco acerca de ópera, 1ra parte

Un poco acerca de ópera, 2da parte

Rossini en pocas palabras Un poco acerca de Alta California

Un poco acerca de barberos Matemáticas prácticas con Fígaro

For the Teacher:

Background Opera, a Crash Course The Indispensable Composers Why

Do They Sound Like That? Opera Vocabulary Origins: Un

fiasco magnifico Meet the Composer Context Who Was

Beaumarchais? What About the Play?

Opera:

A Crash Course

“Opera, next to Gothic architecture, is one of the strangest inventions of Western man. It could not have been foreseen by any logical process.”

~~Kenneth Clark~~

Opera is the Italian word for “work” and as an art form is a play with most or all of the text sung to orchestral accompaniment, usually with elaborate costuming, sets and choreography. Opera is, essentially, a play that is sung. Opera can be spectacular and grand or simple and tender. It is a remarkable display of visual and auditory brilliance.

The history of opera begins in Italy in the late 16th century. A group of intellectuals, scientists and musicians calling themselves the Florentine Camerata wanted to recapture the magic of Greek theater (although it turned out that they were wrong in the assumptions about how Greek theater was performed!). They were also striving to clarify sung text. In their first attempts, the music was simple and the text

This engraving depicts a 1763 riot at Covent Garden because management’s refusal to admit discounted tickets. Opera was taken very seriously!

and voice most important. These early musical plays were often performed during the intermission of a play as incidental entertainment. The oldest opera that is still performed is Orfeo, written in 1607 by Claudio Monteverdi. Rediscovered in the 20th century, it is now performed all over

the world and considered the first work of operatic genius.

In 1637, the first public opera house opened in Venice, Italy, and opera became a “spectator sport”! Between 1637 and 1640, over 388 operas were produced and performed in Venice. Seventeenth century opera singers were the super-stars of their time. They lived or died by their talent—rowdy, passionate Venetian audiences were known to be lavish with their praise, but just as willing to run a singer off the stage!

Opera became the first major Italian export. Germany, France and England were all influenced by Italian opera. Each country designed opera based on its own traditions; by 1618 German composers were writing singspiels (German language operas with spoken dialogue). In France under the

patronage of Louis XIV, French opera was heavily influenced by the ballet—in fact, the French king decreed that all French opera (indeed all opera performed in France, of French origin or not) must include a ballet. English opera was based on a type of English play called a masque.

During the Baroque period (1600-1750), composers re-defined opera. Formal musical structure was given to opera beginning with the overture (a musical introduction), recitative (sung dialogue), and the aria (a song developing emotional information about the character). Singers

1723 engraving of the opera Flavio by Handel. The exaggerated proportions of the male singers are because they are “castrati,” singers that were castrated as boys to preserve their treble sound. This created changed the way these men matured, making them extremely tall and barrel-chested, as well as preserving their high voices. The practice was finally outlawed in Italy in 1861.

also had the freedom to improvise in their arias. This style was called the da capo aria. Da capo means “back to the beginning.” In it, the main idea (A) was followed by a second musical idea (B) and then A was repeated again with improvised fast moving notes called ornaments. Today “Da capo!” shouted from the audience is high praise to a singer—it means repeat what was just sung! (This hardly ever happens in the United States. It is mostly an Italian custom.) The most famous composers of Baroque opera are George Frideric Handel and Alessandro Scarlatti.

The standardization of style in the Baroque period paved the way for composers in the Classical Era (late 18th and early 19th centuries) to reform the style to a simpler, linear form. Singers were stripped of their power to improvise on a whim, because composers saw in the heavy singer-driven ornamentation of the da capo aria a distinct lack of taste and concern for the drama or musical balance. Flexibility was given to the singer at the end of the piece with a cadenza—an improvised, fast moving, flashy ending. Two distinct Italian styles were dominant in this era: opera seria, serious opera, often with a tragic ending, and opera buffa, comic opera, or opera with a happy ending. Famous Classical opera composers are Cristoph Willibald Gluck, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and to a lesser extent Ludwig van Beethoven and Gioachino Rossini. These latter are considered transitional composers, acting as a sort of bridge to the Romantic period.

Romantic opera sets the standards for opera today. The names at the top of the list for Romantic opera are Giuseppe Verdi,

Richard Wagner, and Giacomo Puccini. The Romantic period encompasses the mid and late 19th century. This style explores expansive musical line and new and innovative uses of the voice and orchestral instruments. Opera plots based on true life experiences and ordinary believable characters created a sub-genre of the Romantic period known as verismo opera.

Opera has continued to change and grow throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. American opera has come into its own during the last 50 years with productions by American composers such as Aaron Copland, Samuel Barber, Gian-Carlo Menotti, Carlisle Floyd and Douglas Moore. American singers are on the cutting edge of opera performance, learning the languages of opera, including Italian, French, German, Spanish and Russian. Singers must be versatile in vocal techniques appropriate to each genre of opera, skilled in singing and acting, and able to sing in all languages. In addition, America has contributed the Broadway musical to music theater and is a huge contribution to the world at large.

With the world-wide popularity of the Three Tenors and crossover artists like Andrea Bocelli, Josh Brolan and Charlotte Church, opera attendance continues to grow. The 21st century will continue to bring innovations to the stage, new works to the forefront, and new productions of old standards. The world of opera is enduring and universal and will continue to move and delight audiences into the foreseeable future.

The Indispensable

Composers

George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) German born composer who made much of his career in England writing Italian opera seria. His style used a lot of fast moving notes (the “note-y” passages are called “runs” or melismas) and a fairly simple accompaniment. He is most famous today for his oratorios (basically, un-staged, often religious operas). The Messiah is the most famous of these, but during his life, he was considered the greatest opera composer of his day.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) Austrian composer of Italian opera and singspiel during the classical era. One of the very few opera composers who was a master of all musical forms existing at his time. His operas were written for specific singers—and for those he really hated he wrote exquisitely difficult music! His operas The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, Cosí fan tutte and The Magic Flute all continue to be “bread and butter” pieces of operatic repertoire.

Gioachino Rossini (1792-1848) Italian composer who became a bridge from the Classical Era to the Romantic Era and a writer of the bel canto (literally, “beautiful singing”) style of opera. He is most famous today for his opera buffa, Barber of Seville and Cinderella. He also wrote William Tell, the overture of which became the theme song for the Lone Ranger! Rossini was extremely prolific and wrote about 39 operas in 19 years.

Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) Arguably, the greatest Italian opera composer of all time. His contributions are among the most beloved operas and include such lions of the theater as La Traviata, Rigoletto and Aida. Many more of his titles are staples of opera houses today. He was a great revolutionary step in the history of opera—a perfect culmination of opera composers from Mozart through Bellini and an undisputed master of operatic form.

Richard Wagner (1813-1883) The most influential operatic composer of all time. After Wagner’s operas, no opera was ever composed that was not influenced by his works. He departed from the Italian lyric form and developed the concept of Gesamstkunstwerk—music theater that places equal weight on text, drama and music—a Total Art, epic in length. Wagner’s operas include The Ring Cycle, comprised of four operas, each of which lasts 4-5 hours His harmonies are far more complex than those in Italian opera and the importance and prominence of the orchestral music is far greater than in Italian opera.

Vincenzo Bellini (1801-1835) & Gaetano Donizetti (1797-

1848) Composers of the Bel Canto style. Bellini and Donizetti perfected a style which was all about the beauty of the vocal line. Bellini in particular is credited with writing the best example of bel canto opera with his opera Norma. Donizetti is more famous for his amazing productivity and his opera The Elixir of Love. The most important form in bel canto opera is an aria broken into two parts, the cavatina, a slow melodic part and a cabaletta, a fast moving part with lots of flashy runs.

Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924) If Wagner is the most influential composer of opera, Puccini may be the most popular and accessible of operatic composers. His operas are full of lush and beautiful melodies, extremely affecting theater and believable, enduring characters. His operas include: La Bohème, Madama Butterfly, Tosca and Turandot. Each of his operas show remarkable facility at evoking time and place, using musical techniques that other more avant garde composers were using while continuing to remain, unmistakably, Puccini.

Why do they

sound like that?

Opera singers are highly trained specialists. Each singer learns to maximize the potential of their voice so that they do not need to use microphones. The technique of an opera singer utilizes breath and acoustic resonance in such a way that they can produce enough sound to sing over an orchestra of 30-80 instruments and have every audience member in the theater hear them. To give you some perspective, the Metropolitan Opera House in New York seats about 3900 people. That is a lot of noise for one person to produce without a microphone!

Opera singers are the only professional singers in the world that consistently do not rely on artificial amplification. On occasion, when singing outside or in an amphitheater, singers will be amplified, however that is the exception, not the norm. In order to do this, opera singers undergo rigorous training—much like professional athletes. Most of the singers in this show began piano lessons as small children, sang in choirs, and began formal vocal training when they were about seventeen years old. Most voice teachers will not teach voice to young people under the age of about seventeen because of the strength and physical maturity necessary to singing safely. Younger people interested in voice lessons would be better served by singing in choirs, learning breath technique and learning to read music. Vocal training takes about ten years, and the voice is not fully mature and ready for the rigors of opera until a singer is in their mid-twenties. Some types of voices—usually larger, heavier voices—will not be ready for their repertoire until they are in their early to mid-

A diagram of the voice box. Vocal chords are tiny and vibrate together to create sound. When you breathe in, they open to allow air to pass through. When you breathe out, your breath passing through the vocal cords creates a vacuum, pulling them together and causing them to vibrate. The more taut they are and the thinner they are stretched the higher the sound they produce and the faster they vibrate.

thirties. The trade-off for this lengthy training is a long career—an opera singer can expect their career to last thirty-plus years. In addition to studying vocal technique, opera singers study Italian, French and German, because most operas are written in those languages. A singer may not be fluent in all of these languages, but will at least know how to pronounce them and have a working understanding of them. A singer may also study Russian and Czech. Singers will also take classes in acting, piano, music history, music theory, and if they are smart, dance. To find work, a singer must audition—that is sing—for each potential employer. Opera singers’ salaries cover a vast range—a young professional might expect to make $500-$800 per performance, while a super-star like Luciano Pavarotti earned up to $50,000 per performance—or whatever his agent could negotiate for him!

Let me give you a little perspective! Though it may sound like opera singers make an

awful lot of money—especially to your students—here are some things to remember:

A per performance fee includes 4-6 weeks of 6 hour per day rehearsals, 6 days a week, and that is just once you are at your job— it doesn’t count all of the individual preparation a singer does on his/her own. They are expected to arrive at rehearsal with their music fully memorized.

Voice lessons and coachings cost MONEY! Most singers will have practice sessions with voice teachers who specialize in the technique of singing, and coaches who rehearse singers and give them information on style and interpretation. These sessions are hourly and can cost anywhere from $50-$200 per hour depending on who your teacher/coach is and where you are. One expert from the Metropolitan Opera estimates that it costs a singer $500 to prepare each 7 minute aria they sing for an audition—and again, that is in real money, not just time.

It costs a lot to audition! First of all, if you don’t live in New York City, you will probably have to fly there to audition. You may also have to fly to opera houses around the country and the world to audition. Sometimes, as a young singer, particularly, you will have to pay an application fee (nonrefundable) to audition. The appropriate clothing also costs money.

Music costs money. Head shots (the 8” X 10” photos you hand to auditors) and resumes cost money to have taken and to print. And you may have to send out hundreds of them!

So, by the time you figure in all of the expenses of your business, even Pavarotti

wasn’t making quite so much money as it sounds—although he certainly wasn’t

hurting!

The Anatomy of the Voice

Larynx (pronounced LAIR-inx, not LAHR-nix) The larynx is the voice box. The vocal folds (also called vocal cords) are part of the larynx. The vocal folds vibrate to create the sound of the voice.

2. Pharynx (pronounced FAIR-inx) The pharynx is the throat. It goes up from the larynx and divides into the laryngopharynx (just above the larynx), oropharynx (going into the mouth) and nasopharynx (going into the nose).

3. Trachea (pronounced TRAY-key-ah) The trachea is your windpipe. It's the tube that connects your lungs to your throat. The larynx sits on the top of the trachea.

Some other nearby organs important to singing:

4. Esophagus The esophagus is your food pipe. It's just behind the larynx and trachea. Your pharynx carries both air and food/water. The air goes through the larynx and trachea, and food and water go into your esophagus.

5. Spinal column The spinal column is behind the esophagus. You can feel it by pressing the back of your neck.

6. Diaphragm The diaphragm is underneath the lungs, inside the rib cage. It's shaped like a dome. The diaphragm is your main muscle for controlling respiration (breathing).

Aria

(ah-ree-ah) a solo song. In opera, arias are often used to tell the audience what the character is thinking or feeling—like a monologue in plays

Recitative (reh-chih-tah-teev) literally, “to recite.” Lines that are sung rather than spoken, and forward the action of the story. They are often followed by arias or ensembles which tell how the characters feel about the situation.

Ensemble Group singing, or the group itself. An ensemble can be a chorus of 50 or a duet—it just has to have more than one singer singing at the same time.

Duet Two people singing together

Trio Three people singing together

Quartet Four people singing together

Opera The plural form of the Latin word, opus, which literally translated means “work.” A play that is sung, usually with orchestral accompaniment

Soprano The highest female voice. Rosina is a soprano in the POGO production.

Mezzo soprano

The middle female voice—in a choir, a second soprano or first alto. Rosina was originally scored for a mezzo.

Contralto The lowest female voice.

Tenor The highest male voice. Almaviva is a tenor.

Baritone The middle male voice. Figaro is a baritone.

Bass The lowest male voice. Bartolo is a bass.

Trouser or pants role

In some operas, a mezzo soprano plays a young man or a boy whose voice hasn’t changed yet. This is a very old operatic convention.

Set Short for “setting.” The scenery the singers/actors work on.

Conductor The leader of the orchestra and singers. Just like on a train, the conductor keeps everything on track.

Props Short for “properties.” Anything onstage that is not part of the set or the costumes.

What is THAT??!

Opera vocabulary

Origins: Un fiasco magnifico

Making The Barber of Seville

“Thou knowest, O Lord, as well as I, that really, I am only a composer of opera buffa.”

~~Rossini~~

Comedy is hard. Comedy in music can be even harder, because, as Rossini ably proves in his brilliant, rollicking comedy The Barber of Seville, it is hard to tell whether music is innately “funny”—or not—without context. Much of Barber was cobbled together from other Rossini operas (mainly his tragedies), which just goes to show that context is everything.

Music from six other of Rossini operas appears in The Barber of Seville. But we should, perhaps, cut the maestro some slack, since according to legend, he actually wrote the score in 13 days. Of course, writing down the music and the conceiving and planning of it are very different things, and it is highly likely that Rossini had been toying with the idea of setting Beaumarchais’ witty and wonderful play for quite a while.

A caricature of a French cast of The Barber of Seville

Rossini’s self-pilfering was de rigueur for the busy, prolific composer, and many of his audiences would never have noticed, having had no chance to have seen operas written and performed for theaters in other cities. In Barber one can hear the overture written for Aureliano in Palmira (1813), which was re-used as the overture for Elisabetta, Regina d’Inghilterra (1815), and then made immortal as the overture for Barber. Count Almaviva’s winsome love song, Ecco ridente in cielo, is lifted from a Lenten cantata Rossini wrote in 1812, recycled in another opera, and finally adapted for his amorous count. La calunnia, that tour de force for Don Basilio, is adapted from a chorus opening his tragedy Sigusmondo. There are other imports throughout the opera, all from operas of Rossini’s that have melted into obscurity. (Rossini was clever about finding an appropriate vehicle for some of his best music!) Rossini’s classic comedy is based on French playwright Beaumarchais’ play The Barber of Seville, first in a trilogy of plays about the ingenious Figaro. Setting the comedy as an opera was not an original idea by the time Rossini got around to considering it. German, English and Spanish operatic adaptations appeared shortly after Beaumarchais’ play, but the most successful and enduring of the early Barbers was Paisiello’s. And it was with this version that Rossini had to contend when he opened his own. The musical adaptations of Beaumarchais’ play make good sense. Beaumarchais had at first conceived his Barber as an opera comique, prepared for the Comédie-Italienne. Among his myriad talents, Beaumarchais was a more than competent musician, who always included extensive music into his plays. Sadly, his opera comique was rejected by the Comédie-Italienne. Evidently, the theater’s primo uomo (leading man) had once been a barber and he did not relish the public being reminded of that fact. Undaunted, Beaumarchais presented The Barber of Seville to the Théâtre Français as a comedy—albeit with nine of his original songs and

orchestration for the storm scene intact. The amount of music left in the play was deemed too much by the theater impresario and Beaumarchais was obliged to savage his score and remove almost all of it from the play. Giovanni Paisiello was the premiere composer of the Neapolitan School, tremendously popular and extremely famous. His Barber was written for St. Petersburg, where he served as the court conductor and opened at the Hermitage in 1782. It soon made its way around Europe and had been greatly admired in Italy for a generation before Rossini got his hands on it. Rossini took great precautions not to offend Paisiello or his partisans with his own plans for an opera. He publicly announced his admiration for Paisiello and his artistic achievement with Barber, assuring all that his was to be an entirely new treatment of Beaumarchais’ play. He even titled his opera Almaviva to avoid infringing on the older

Giovanni Paisiello in 1791 by Marie Louise Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun

composer’s rights. It wasn’t until after Pasiello’s death that Rossini’s work bore the title The Barber of Seville. All of Rossini’s careful politics were to no avail. Paisiello’s fans were ready to rumble with the young composer for having the effrontery to think he could write something to rival the maestro. Opening night for Rossini’s opera was stacked against him. Rossini biographer Stendahl, who wrote the gossipy and entertaining (and often inaccurate) Vie de Rossini, delighted in telling the story of Barber’s opening night fiasco. To begin with, Rossini, in keeping with the Spanish setting of the opera, arrived at the theater in a vicuña suit in a startling hazel color, adorned with gigantic gold buttons. Immediately, the rowdy audience mocked the composer mercilessly, only to be distracted by the presumptuous tenor, who rather than singing the aria the composer prepared for his first appearance, strode on stage with an untuned guitar with which he intended to accompany himself in a song of his choosing. Unfortunately, as he began to tune the instrument, all of the strings snapped—to the derogatory howls of the audience. Increasing the audience’s hilarity, Figaro arrived on stage with a mandolin. On the first strum, its strings snapped too. Don Basilio tripped and bloodied his nose, forcing him to sing while dabbing gingerly at his face. In a final disastrous moment, a cat entered, and the cast, in

an attempt to encourage it to leave the stage, chased it under Rosina’s skirts.

The ensuing howls and whistles made it impossible to hear the opera onstage. Rossini slunk from the theater and went to bed. Ironically, according to Stendahl, the audience that night was full of priests! The next night, Rossini’s opera fared better. Humiliated, Rossini did not venture to the theater, but stayed at

home and went to bed early. He was woken by what sounded to him a braying mob and he remained hiding in his room, sure that “those abbés have come looking for [him] to give [him] a trouncing.” It was not so. Rossini’s Barber was a success after all. It seemed that all of Rome had sought him out to carry him to triumph. The Barber of Seville has become celebrated as one of the three greatest operatic comedies ever written. Of all Rossini’s many operas, it is The Barber of Seville that has never left the opera

house and remains fixed as the definitive telling of Beaumarchais’ class conscious play.

Meet the composer:

Giaochino Rossini (1792-1868)

On February 29, 1792, in Pesaro, Italy, Gioachino Rossini was born. Rossini’s importance to opera cannot be overstated. His music served as a bridge, spanning from the old-fashioned, oddly stilted forms of his predecessors, Cimarosa and Paisiello, to the more integrated dramatic and musical forms of the latter half of the 19th century. Rossini’s innovations created a whole new vocabulary for opera, paving the way for Verdi, Meyerbeer and Wagner.

Born to musician parents, the young Rossini was steeped in operatic and symphonic music. His father, Giuseppe Antonio Rossini, horn player and sometime professor at Bologna’s Accademia Filarmonica, was imprisoned for his deep political convictions, forcing his wife, Anna, to pursue more diligently her operatic career. Their son, Gioachino, exhibited great musical promise, composing as early as age 12. At the precocious age of 14, he was accepted into the Accademia Filarmonica, where he made himself useful as an accompanist and répétiteur.1 Rossini demonstrated himself an apt pupil, with a fine knowledge of Haydn and Mozart, despite his apparent inability and lack of interest in counterpoint.2 At the Accademia, Rossini heard two singers destined to shape his career: Velluti, the great castrato, who symbolized the old traditions of opera, and the remarkable soprano, Isabella Colbran, who created many of Rossini’s dramatic heroines and who eventually became his wife. Rossini claimed to have been a great admirer of the “purity…and profoundly penetrating

1 A répétiteur helps a singer to learn their notes and

music. 2 Counterpoint is the relationship between voices

that are interdependent harmonically (polyphony) yet independent in rhythm and contour.

G.B. Velluti (1781-1861)

The Singer Isabella Colbran, artist unknown

accent” of the castrato voice, even while the castrato phenomenon was on the wane. Velluti, did, however, represent the finest of castrato singers, and Rossini wrote one role for him—after which, it seems, Rossini’s enthusiasm for Velluti cooled. The castrato was notorious for ornamenting arias until they were unrecognizable. Supposedly, Rossini’s experience with Velluti’s “interpretation” of his arias prompted Rossini to write down all of his ornaments, leading to the fiendishly difficult coloratura passages for which Rossini is famous. The man was attempting to write enough notes so that singers would find it impossible to add their own! It seems that the confines of academia put a crimp in Rossini’s composition, and he wrote little. After he left, abandoning his studies early, his composition increased. Rossini was commissioned to write a farsa for the Teatro San Moisè in Venice. The San Moisè was a savvy, well-managed opera

company, perfect for the fledgling composer to hone his craft. Farse were low budget, chorus-less, 80-minute operas, characterized by barebones sets and a short, inexpensive rehearsal period. Rossini wrote four farse for San Moisè. The cast typically consisted of six singers: soprano and tenor ingénue leads, a seconda donna (soprano or mezzo) and a trio of buffo (comic) basses or a tenor and two basses. The strict casting and short dramatic arc of the farsa led Rossini to develop a very effective structure which formed the basis of his subsequent full-length comedies’ first acts; a structure he sometimes altered, but never totally abandoned. After a brief confrontation in 1811 with the censor over his first two act opera, Rossini settled into a successful groove. His brilliant use of alliterative phrasings and funny sound bites made him an extremely popular composer in Milan. His popularity earned him a military deferment and name recognition which guaranteed an audience for any of his new works. Of his operas in this early period, Tancredi stands out as the watershed. An opera seria first performed in 1813, Tancredi contains not only some of Rossini’s loveliest music, but some true innovations, hitherto unseen in the

stilted opera seria form. Most notable of these changes are the multi-sectional arias and duets ending in lively cabalettas. Rossini’s opera buffa, L’Italiana in Algeri (The Italian Girl in Algiers) exemplifies the composer’s inventiveness. For the first time he uses elements of opera seria and combines them with the opera buffa, infusing comedies with soul and enhancing tragedies with bright spots of levity. Such mixing of the genres was unheard of, and some critics accused Rossini of blending these elements willy-nilly without regard to effect. An un-biased hearing proves this to be untrue. The year 1816 marked the beginning of a new phase in Rossini’s career. He signed a contract in the Teatro San Carlo in Naples. The Neapolitans had been inured to the Rossini-mania sweeping Italy and Europe, being by nature conservative and preferring to immerse themselves in Paisiello and Cimarosa, but Domenico Barbaia, fabulously wealthy entrepreneur and artistic director of the San Carlos, sought to capitalize on the novelty of Rossini’s art. And capitalize he did. Rossini’s output during the Neapolitan period was prolific. Rossini churned out 18 operas in 7 years. Compare that to Puccini

who wrote 11 operas in his entire 42 year career—or Verdi who wrote 29 operas over 54 years. After Naples, Rossini traveled to Vienna for the “season,” a trip orchestrated by Barbaia. During this trip he married soprano Isabella Colbran. After Vienna,

Rossini returned to Bologna to finish work on Semiramide, but change was in the wind for him. His Italian career was ending. Offers for lucrative positions poured in from all over Europe—a trip to London lined his pockets for nothing more than attending the parties of wealthy admirers—but despite the enthusiastic fans in Austria and England, Rossini spoke neither German nor English, and at last accepted the offer from the Theatre Italien in Paris. While not the highest-paid, the position offered Rossini the opportunity to live in a city he loved, exposure to music from all over Europe and the

responsibility of training some of the finest singers of his time. The first opera he composed for the Theâtre Italien was Il Viaggio a Reims, an opera written for the coronation of Charles X. Because the music was an occasional piece, Rossini was later able to cannibalize much of it to write Le Comte Ory, a brilliant opéra comique which

Dominico Barbaia in the 1820s. Painting by Giovanni Battista Rubini. Rossini is in the background

went way beyond the usual vocal demands of that genre. In fact, Le Comte Ory had to be performed at the Paris Opéra itself,

because only it could accommodate the ambitious orchestrations. Rossini’s final opera Guillaume Tell is a grand summation of a tremendous career. In Guillaume Tell, Rossini’s Italian advances are melded with his newly honed skills learned writing French grand opera. Guillaume Tell is so masterful that even Richard Wagner, whose barbed relationship with Rossini is legendary, felt compelled to compliment Rossini on his admirable marriage of music and drama. Rossini reportedly quipped, “Dear me, I was writing the music of the future and didn’t know it.”

It seems, however, that Rossini tired of opera after Guillaume Tell. During his remaining 39 years, he never wrote another opera. He returned to Bologna and retired from operatic life. Why is a matter for speculation. Exhaustion is one explanation. He had written 39 operas in 19 years, most of which were successful and many of which were masterpieces. Illness may be another. Still, he perhaps simply needed a rest. After all, a career producing Barber of Seville, La Cenerentola, L’Italiana in Algeri, Semiramide and Guillaume Tell, to name but a few, certainly is astonishing, and gives lie to Rossini’s famed laziness. He spent his last years as a gourmand, a raconteur, a voice teacher and a marvelous cook. After so many contributions to opera, he had certainly earned a rich retirement. Despite the importance of these contributions, Rossini’s work lost favor with the public, who replaced him with Verdi and Puccini. It was not until the mid-and late 20th century that Rossini’s works were revitalized by the likes of Marilyn Horne and Cecilia Bartoli. To these fine singers we owe a debt of gratitude for re-opening the world of Rossini beyond The Barber of Seville.

Rossini loved to cook! Here he is in a caricature by Etienne Carjat

Context: Quick answers for complex

Questions

What does “bel canto”

mean?

Bel canto means, literally, “beautiful singing” in Italian. Most generally, it is used to mean the elegant, Italian vocal style prevalent during the 18th and early 19th centuries. Rossini used it to define singers who possessed three things: “a naturally beautiful voice, even in tone throughout the range; careful training that encouraged effortless [flexibility] and delivery of highly florid (lots of notes sung/played very quickly) music; and a mastery of style that could not be taught but only assimilated from listening to the best Italian exponents.” Bel canto can also refer to a period of Italian opera best represented by the composers Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti.

What’s a “factotum?”

Figaro is called a factotum for Seville—but what does that mean? According to Merriam Webster’s Dictionary a factotum is 1 : a person having many diverse activities or responsibilities or 2 : a general servant. It is Latin and means literally, do everything, from Latin fac (imperative of facere do) + totum (everything)

Hey, what was going on

in 1816, when the opera was written?

The Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar grants the first German Constitution

Argentina declared independent Indiana becomes one of the United

States Jane Austen publishes “Emma” Sir David Brewster invents the

kaleidoscope R.T. Laënnec invents the stethoscope English economic crisis causes large-

scale emigration to Canada and the U.S.

Figaro's got you covered.

Who was Pierre Augustin Beaumarchais?

If you do not know Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, commonly known as Beaumarchais, you should. Read on to learn about this remarkable man and real

life Figaro.

Each biography of Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais (January 24, 1732-May 18, 1799) seems to carry a subtitle listing his activities—they usually read something like this:

“The dramatic story of the author of The Barber of Seville and The Marriage of Figaro—writer, musician and brilliant inventor, diplomat and

soldier, confidant of kings and republicans, spy and social reformer, lover…” (Grendel, 1977)

Such a laundry list reflects the awe we feel for a man who would have earned his place in the sun for any one of his many astounding accomplishments, and yet throughout his exciting and active life continued to retain his preternatural energy, curiosity and monumental intellect. Beaumarchais was a self-made man, when self-made men were few and far between. He invented and re-invented himself, while always remaining true to his essential self. Beaumarchais was born Pierre-Augustin Caron in the deep winter into a successful bourgeoisie family, with a sparkling and lively home life. His father, André-Charles Caron, was a watch maker, who had been born a Protestant in a time when Protestants were persecuted and denied their civil rights (Protestants could not marry, enter a guild, or give their names to their sons and daughters) in France. Making a decision so many made, Caron père signed the paper officially forswearing the faith of his father and entering into

André Charles Caron Jean Andre Lepaute, royal clockmaker

society as a man who, in the eyes of the law, suddenly was brought, fully grown, into existence. It was an embittering experience, one which he made sure that each of his children

understood. Caron fils (or Fils Caron, as he was called as a youth) was keenly aware of the precarious position of his official existence throughout his life. Perhaps this is why he was so often the ardent supporter of the underdog. The watch maker’s home life was full of music: each member played an instrument, and played together. The tightly knit family wrote little plays and performed them together to amuse themselves, read poetry and novels, and the talents of the Carons were on full display. Of his six surviving children, Caron père had only one son, whom he raised to follow in his footsteps. The young Caron was more of a rakehell as a youth, pursuing girls and music with equal—and disturbing—abandon. After some scrape or another, his father felt compelled to draw up a contract with his son upon his apprenticeship in the family business, which was bound to keep the lad busy. A quote from this contract, which elucidates the father’s expectations of his son, is striking: “…I shall give nothing to words, henceforth I heed only actions.” Throughout his life, Beaumarchais would put his money where his mouth was. The boy progressed rapidly in his father’s charge, and soon mastered the art of watch

making. His work was so extraordinary that he attracted the attention of Lepaute, King Louis XV’s royal clock maker. Lepaute came to watch the boy work in the shop. Each day he would visit the flattered boy, watching and learning, knowing that the youth’s skill outpaced his own. Fils Caron, you see, had invented the virgule escapement, a vast improvement on the watch escapements of the day, and the forefather of the escapement in modern watches. This device enabled the watch to neither lose nor gain time—it was accurate to the second. Lepaute observed and learned, and finally presented the king with a watch utilizing Fils Caron’s new escapement and claiming it as his own. The invention was all over the papers. Reading about it, Fils Caron recognized his work, and, remarkably, challenged the status quo. At twenty-one years old, the watch maker’s son wrote a letter to the press and presented his case to the Academy. The letter is bold—delicious in its audacity. And, the Academy, examining the work of the two men, determined that the escapement was, indeed, the brainchild of fils Caron. Lepaute was forced to slink away, and Caron stepped into his place, presenting Madame de Pompadour with a watch set in a ring. The watch face was a third of an inch across and wound by a decorative gold ring. His skill and sense of justice earned him a place at court and he was well on his way to becoming Beaumarchais.

Not long after, a young woman came to visit Fils Caron at his father’s shop, where he worked diligently when he was not summoned to Versailles. She presented him with a broken watch and left him her heart. Her husband, a rather old man, was the Comptroller of Victuals to Louis XV, and therefore arrived at table before the beef, but after the bread. While it seems silly, these honorary positions were coveted among the burgeoning bourgeoisie and were a way to “move up” in the world. Conveniently enough, the old man died, leaving Fils Caron his beautiful young wife, and his situation. Both, Fils Caron gladly accepted. His new bride brought another plum to the marriage: her husband’s wooded estate, Beaumarchais. Upon her death, a mere 10 months after their wedding, Fils Caron became Caron de Beaumarchais, and eventually simply Beaumarchais, denoting nobility, which, as Beaumarchais noted years later, he had bought and paid for. Gradually the handsome, witty young man came to the attention of the royal family. He had invented a rather remarkable harp, improving the arrangement of the pedals which raised and lowered the tone of the strings. His expertise with this instrument earned him the honor of teaching the princesses, and he therefore had access, via these ladies, to the ear of the king. His mercurial rise did not make him universally popular, of course. There were others about the court gunning for him, but his charm, wit, and the protection of the princesses diffused the worst of the plots. Throughout his time at Versailles, Beaumarchais was sent on errands in Paris, garnering him many acquaintances and allies. He also was industrious in his

business ventures, amassing a small fortune along the way. He remarried, had a son, lost both wife and son to illness, gained and lost a beloved mentor (and business partner), traveled to Seville to rescue his sister’s honor from a cad of biblical proportions, made another fortune, and finally began the lawsuit which was to make him a champion of the people in the eyes of the Parisian populace. The entire affair should have been a civil suit finished quietly in court, but Beaumarchais had made an enemy of the Comte de La Blanche. How? Beaumarchais’

beloved mentor and business partner was Pâris-Duverny, an elderly banker of fabulous wealth, who died leaving no children, a grand-niece and grand-nephew. The Comte de La Blanche was married to the grand-niece who

was Duverny’s sole heir, his grand-nephew having been cut from the will. When Duverny died, he died owing Beaumarchais a tidy but modest sum, due to a secret business transaction that they had kept between themselves. Beaumarchais had borrowed fabulous sums from Duverny for various business ventures and paid it back, but during probate, La Blanche refused to recognize Duverny’s signature on the note discharging the debt, transforming Beaumarchais into a debtor of the estate. Both men were rich, both connected. Why would La Blanche pursue this baseless suit? Very simply, he hated Beaumarchais. The germ of his intense hatred is unknown, but

Paris-Duverny 1

he dogged Beaumarchais for years. Beaumarchais sued. La Blanche began spreading baseless rumors about his foe, whispering poisonous lies about the deaths of his wives, about gambling debts and cheating; no moral turpitude was beneath the Beaumarchais of La Blanche’s fictions. The courts ruled against La Blanche six months later, but his calumny did not desist. La Blanche went to parliament—a parliament recently reconstituted by the King, and full of allies. After a series of ludicrous events, Beaumarchais was arrested. His new play, The Barber of Seville. was banned from opening since he was mouldering in jail, unable to free himself, because La Blanche had called in some favors to keep him there, and set about once again to wreck his life. He even moved to reschedule his court appeal to be heard while Beaumarchais was imprisoned. In the course of Beaumarchais’ imprisonment, a despicable and deceitful couple was embroiled in the La Blanche machinations: the Goezmans, whom Beaumarchais was accused of bribing. As Goezman was a minister who would be judging his appeal, Beaumarchais understood that he could not win within the court itself, so he began to write the first Memoires, a series of pamphlets which skewered his opponents and Parliament with such wit and skill that the delighted

Parisians and their brethren throughout Europe acquitted him. The facts were on Beaumarchais’ side and the court had no choice but to rule in his favor. The consequences of his win were far reaching. He, a nobody, a self-made man, had stood up to the marble halls of power and won. Beaumarchais became a folk hero. But his win came at a price. He was stripped of his civil rights, as was Madame Goezman. His persona non grata status ended up making him very useful for the King of France. Beaumarchais became a spy for the

crown. At first he was sent to England, ostensibly to stop the

publication of an inflammatory pamphlet designed to cause

Madame du Barry embarrassment. He was involved in more high level negotiations, however, and found himself a network of spies and moles within the British government which convinced him that

if France wished to break free of Britain’s yoke and

the humiliating Treaty of Paris, she should back the

American colonists in their fight for independence. Letter after letter he wrote to Louis XVI, urging the cautious and idealist king to

action. Finally, Beaumarchais, convinced of his righteousness, proposed a daring plan of action to support the Americans with plausible deniability for France. He set up a dummy corporation to run guns to the revolutionaries. At great personal risk and financial investment, Beaumarchais involved France in the American fight for independence. Indeed, he walked the fine

Comte de la Blanche

Beaumarchais' lovely third wife, Marie Thérèse Willermawlaz

line among bickering American patriots in Paris, forced the French government’s

hand, and ultimately contributed to the success of the American Revolution. Which kept him busy, but not so busy that he was unable to pursue gathering and publishing the complete works of Voltaire in a gigantic, beautiful, omnibus edition. As if that weren’t enough, he created the playwrights’ guild, which demanded to be paid a fair amount for their works and wrest some control over their own plays from the very powerful actors’ guild. Oh, and he met the woman who would become his third wife and bear his only living child, Eugenie.

Her name was Marie-Thérèse. She came to his home, unknown and unannounced to see his innovative new harp, and never left again. They cohabitated for 12 years before Beaumarchais finally made her his wife. In the light of his myriad activities, all of them leading him to the presence and ear of the King and his highest ministers, Beaumarchais’ plays seem almost inconsequential, but first The Barber of Seville and then The Marriage of Figaro gave voice and inspiration to the ideals of the French Revolution. The inspired character of Figaro (it is speculated that Figaro’s name is an Italianization of Fils Caron) speaks in the voice of Beaumarchais and is surrounded by characters who populated his own life. That his plays could be at once so personal and so universal speaks to his genius. His battles to see The Marriage of Figaro performed are legendary, as is Napoleon’s assertion that, “The Marriage of Figaro is already the revolution in action.” There were more adventures, more lawsuits, more arrests, jail time, threats from an unruly Parisian mob during the Revolution…up to the end Beaumarchais’ life was a pell mell rush to the finish line. How delightful that after a lovely dinner with family and friends, this man of many joys and sorrows and many talents and contributions should die, peacefully, in his sleep, on May 18, 1799.

What About

The Play?

Arlecchino et Columbina, Giovanni Domenico Ferretti (1692-1768)

“The god of the cabals is irritated!” I said to the actors. “Children, a sacrifice is necessary!” So tearing

up my manuscript, I offered the devil the fourth act to appease his fury.

~~Beaumarchais, the initial flop of The Barber of Seville~~

Much like Rossini’s infamous premiere of his opera, The Barber of Seville, Beaumarchais’ first night of his play was a horrifying disappointment. The first act fared well, with an appreciative audience. The second was greeted with hoots and angry bellowing from the crowd…the third, fourth and fifth with hissing and whistles. A resounding failure made all the more disconcerting to Beaumarchais after his triumphant lawsuit against the Goëzmans and La Blanche had made him the toast of Paris. Unlike Rossini, though, Beaumarchais did not slink from the theater. Instead, he took the play, and in two days reworked it, excising the slow fourth act entirely, and making other significant cuts, for its reappearance before an audience taut with expectation. As with Rossini’s opera, the second hearing proved to be a stunning victory. Perhaps Beaumarchais adapted his work so easily because it had been adapted before. He had originally intended that The Barber of Seville would be a comic opera, but it had been rejected by the Comédie Italienne. He then adapted it as a play, but was told that there were far too many songs in it, and he adapted it yet again. His four-act version was accepted by the censor, but the day before it was set to

open, it was banned because Beaumarchais was in jail. By the time of the unfortunate first night, Beaumarchais was inured from frustration!

The Barber of Seville is, on the surface, a straightforward comedy, easily summarized in a sentence:

“An old man in love intends to marry his ward tomorrow; a young suitor, more adroit than he, thwarts him, and marries the girl today under the guardian’s very nose and in his own house.” (Beaumarchais)

Of course, this is a synopsis that could be applied to thousands of plays—not to mention the street entertainment of commedia del ‘arte troupes popular throughout Italy and France for hundreds of years. In fact, many of the characters in Beaumarchais’ play have commedia counterparts, and much has been written about the evolution of Beaumarchais’ characters from commedia’s masques, but The Barber of Seville is more special than that. Why? Well…Figaro. He does have a commedia counterpart, slightly modified in Harlequin—but Harlequin, though good-hearted, is, in the Italian commedia, a dolt. No one has yet accused Figaro of being a dolt! The resourceful barber shares much with crafty Brighella, whose cunning is legendary, but whose heart is dark, a trait utterly unlike the good-natured Figaro. So a combination of archetypes for something uniquely Beaumarchais’ own, then. But then there is more than a little of Beaumarchais himself in Figaro, whose name biographer Frédéric Grendel and eminent scholar Jaques Scherer posit is a Latinized phonetic rendering of the name Beaumarchais was called by throughout his youth: Fils Caron. It is a compelling argument. In French, in the 18th century, the “l” and “s” in fils are silent, as is the “n” in Caron. The distance between Figaro and Fi-caro is very little. Beaumarchais delighted in word games and was very careful in choosing the names of his characters. Perhaps Figaro is so fascinating because it is the first time that

the playwright embedded himself in the play and spoke directly through his character. The other characters have their commedia counterparts. Most particularly, the young lovers, Almaviva and Rosina, find antecedents in Lelio and Isabella—characters frequently paired as lovers in street comedies. Almaviva represents a bit more than a hapless noble in love, though. Almaviva ultimately will represent the vagaries of the aristocracy in Beaumarchais’ masterpiece The Marriage of Figaro, but even in lighthearted, insignificant Barber, we can see the barbs Beaumarchais cast covertly throughout his play:

ALMAVIVA: …I recall that in my service you were not especially obedient. FIGARO: The poor have their weaknesses like everyone else, my lord. ALMAVIVA: Lazy, argumentative…

FIG FIGARO: To judge by the virtues demanded of a servant, does Your Excellency know many masters who are fit to be valets?

The villains are most easily dismissed as commedia masques—Doctor Bartolo, of course, with his blustering, his age and his questionable ethics is found in Pantalone, and in the Dottore characters, and Basilio is surely Brighella, liar and toady, utterly corrupt. Of course, Beaumarchais, clever fellow that he was, added elements of the real villains in his own life, and the fact was not lost upon his audiences, who laughed in delight recognizing some of the players in Beaumarchais’ lawsuits and scandals. It is the mark of Beaumarchais’ genius that his plays are still so delightful to modern audiences. Sadly, Beaumarchais’ sparkling, subversive plays have been supplanted in non-French speaking countries by the marvelous operas by Mozart and Rossini. In France, where the idiomatic language is unfiltered, they still enjoy revivals and grace theaters. Despite few opportunities to hear Beaumarchais’ words, we can still hear the echoes of their wit and daring through the lens of Mozart’s and Rossini’s ebullient scores.

Lesson Plans:

Language Arts Casting Director Everyone’s a Critic How to Write an

Opera People Postcards Words for Music Translations

What Happens Next?

Lesson Plan: Casting Director Cast an opera based on a familiar story, using known character traits and operatic conventions

Overview:

One of the jobs of a composer is to decide what voice types would best represent a character’s qualities. Traditionally in opera and musical theater, the female romantic lead is a soprano, the male romantic lead a tenor, the secondary lead is a lower soprano or a mezzo soprano, etc. This lesson provides students the opportunity to listen to and identify different voice types and “cast” their own opera based on a movie or story they know well by making aesthetic decisions based upon known character traits of literary figures or movie roles, and the vocal qualities of the different voice types. Students will describe why they made the decisions that they made.

Learning Objectives:

Students will: Listen to and identify the major operatic voice types: soprano, mezzo soprano, tenor,

bass/baritone Make aesthetic judgments about the expressive qualities and uses of the different

timbres of voice Analyze the character traits of a literary or movie character and match voice type to

characteristics of the role (these casting decisions DO NOT have to follow operatic convention, but must be explained by the students)

“Cast” an opera based on a familiar story or movie Justify their artistic decisions

Common Core Standards:

CCSS.ELA.Literacy: RL1.3, RL2.3, RL3.1, RL3.2, RL3.3, RL4.3, RL5.3 CCSS.ELA.Writing: W3.1.A,B,C,D W3.2B,D W4.1.A,B,C,D W4.2.D,E W5.1.A,B,C,D W5.2.B,C,D,E

Materials:

Per Student:

Paper and pencil

Opera Voices handout (for reference) Per Group/Class:

Blackboard/whiteboard/flipchart to write on as a class CD player Opera CDs demonstrating the different voices (or, alternatively one CD called World’s

Best Opera for Kids…in English! This CD offers some great arias which feature all of the basic voice types, with the words in English. It is fully orchestrated.)

Prep for Teachers:

If you are unfamiliar with the operatic voice types, read the accompanying “cheat sheet” For the Teacher: Voice Types in Opera. Listen to the recommended selections. (Most are available through Classical Archives.com, through your local library, or on YouTube)

Make copies of the Opera Voices handout for the students Gather CDs or procure a copy of World’s Best Opera for Kids…in English!

Introductory Activity:

Using a story familiar to your students, ask them to name the characters. As they name the characters, list them on the board leaving room to write more about each character.

After they have listed the characters, ask the students to list the traits of each character—what makes the character the character? Have them list both physical and psychological traits. Try to get them to be more specific about the characters than “they are nice.”

Ask the students if they have ever thought about what the character sounds like. If the characters your students are examining come from a movie, have them describe the sound of their voice. If the characters are from a book, have them explore what the characters voice might sound like: is it low or high? Clear or raspy? Soft or loud?

Explain to the students that in opera and in musical theater, the composer has a wonderful tool for helping people to know about their characters.

o Ask the students if they can guess what that tool is o Acknowledge that it is the music and the quality of voice of the singer

Tell the students that today, they will be learning about the different types of voices used in opera and how composers use them.

Let them know that after they have learned the sounds of the different voices and what composers have traditionally used them for, they will get to make some decisions about how they think the voice types should be used, by casting the characters of a story (one they choose, or that you choose for them—if using movies, Pirates of the Caribbean works tremendously well for this) as opera singers.

Learning Activities:

Distribute the Opera Voices handout to students Introduce the different voice types to them.

o As you introduce each voice type, play a selection that illustrates the sound of that voice type (remember, your learners are only going to learn the very basic voice types, not the vocal fachs).

Recommended introductory selections for the voice types:

Soprano: “Sempre libera” from La Traviata by Verdi (sung by Violetta)

Mezzo soprano: “Habanera” from Carmen by Bizet (sung by Carmen)

Tenor: “Nessun dorma” from Turandot by Puccini (sung by Calaf)

Baritone/Bass: “La veau d’or” from Faust by Gounod (sung by Mefistofeles)

o After the students hear each selection, solicit feedback about how the voices made them feel, what they sounded like, etc. Introduce the concept of timbre (pronounced TAM-ber) to them. Timbre is the combination of qualities of a sound that distinguishes it from other sounds of the same pitch and volume. So, loud or soft is not timbre, but warm, bright, dark all are words we used to describe vocal timbres.

Explain to the students that now you are going to play a little game. You are going to play some selections for them and see if they can identify the voice types that are singing. It would be great if you can play a variety of different operatic characters (if you were to play the Queen of the Night from The Magic Flute, for instance, you have a soprano bad guy to add to the mix—each voice can play a wide range of characters, depending on the music that they are singing). You needn’t play entire selections—just enough for them to hear the range and color of the voice. Play the game until you are fairly certain that your learners understand and can identify the basic voice types: soprano, alto, tenor or bass.

Once students are familiar with the voice types, it is time to cast their opera! o Ask students to identify what qualities that they feel each voice type best

describes. See if they can articulate why certain vocal timbres suggest certain characteristics to them. (why does a high light soprano sound like a young girl?)

o Tell the students that now it is time to cast a story as an opera! Identify which story or movie you will use. Ask students to shout out the characters, and write them on the board. Ask students which voice type should play each of the characters. If

there is some debate, ask learners to explain and justify their choices to reach consensus.

Cast your opera! (There is no “right” way to cast—as long as your students can explain their casting, it is “right.”)

Culminating Activity:

Have students write a reflection which includes: o Defining the voice types and the roles they traditionally play o Describing what voices they chose to cast as characters in their opera o Did they use the traditional types of voices for the characters? Why or why not?

David Saffert, Portland Opera To Go pianist, working with students in the classroom.

FOR THE TEACHER: VOICE TYPES IN OPERA

There are four main voice types in all singing: soprano, alto, tenor, and bass. In opera, we break these voice types down further to reflect the timbre, range and dramatic requirements (read “volume”) necessary to a given role. The following is a quick breakdown of the major operatic vocal fachs. A fach (pronounced fahk) is a German term which literally means “compartment” and refers to the classification of operatic voices. It can get quite complex, but here we will only look at the basic fachs. SOPRANO: The highest of the female voices, opera has always reserved a special place for the soprano. In an opera, the soprano is usually our heroine, because her high, bright voice suggests youth and innocence. There are several different types of soprano. The most basic are:

The coloratura: High, very flexible voice which sings a lot of notes very quickly. These voices are usually light, which allows them to sing highly ornamented music. Listen to “Der Hölle Rache” from The Magic Flute by Mozart or “The Doll’s Song” from Tales of Hoffmann by Offenbach.

The lyric: Lyric sopranos have a fuller richer sound than a coloratura and their roles are usually graceful, charming or sentimental. Listen to “Mi chiamano Mimi” from La Bohème by Puccini.

The dramatic: The heaviest, darkest and loudest of the soprano types. These roles are still the leading lady, but require a little more “oomph” because of the role and the orchestrations. Listen to “Senta’s Ballad” from Der fliegende Hollander by Wagner.

MEZZO SOPRANO: The mezzo has a lower, darker voice than the soprano, though not as low as a contralto. In opera, the mezzo plays the mother-types, seductive heroines (femme fatales) and villains. Mezzos also play young men sometimes. These roles are called “trouser” or “pants” roles. Hansel in Hansel and Gretel is a trouser role. In choirs, the mezzo soprano would be referred to as an alto. Listen to the “Habanera” from Carmen by Bizet or “Mon coeur s'ouvre à ta voix” from Samson et Dalilah by Bizet. There are different types of mezzos, as there are sopranos, but there is less precision when categorizing mezzos. CONTRALTO: The lowest of the female voices. Contraltos are very rare, as are their roles. A magnificent contemporary example of a contralto is Ewa Podles. Watch anything she has sung on YouTube. Contraltos play witches, old women, and gypsies. COUNTERTENOR: A very high, specialty male voice, who sing in the mezzo soprano/contralto range. These men typically are singing in falsetto, although less often they are singing with their “normal” or modal voices.

TENOR: Typically defined as the highest male voice. In opera, tenors play the leading men, young, virile, romantic leads. There are several types of tenor voice, the most important of which are:

Lyric Tenor: A light flowing, high and bright voice. Listen to “Dies Bildnis ist bezaubernd schön” from The Magic Flute by Mozart.

Dramatic Tenor: A darker voiced tenor, with a full resonance and high ringing tones. Listen to “Nessun dorma” from Turandot by Puccini. (Pavorotti is still the definitive interpreter of this aria.)

BARITONE: The most common male voice type, the baritone’s voice is lower than the tenor, with a darker timbre. In comic operas, the baritone is often the comic protagonist, but in drama, he is just as often the villain. Listen to “Largo al factotum” from The Barber of Seville by Rossini and “Credo” from Otello by Verdi, for two different types of baritone. BASS BARITONE: Lower than the baritone, higher than the bass, the bass baritone often plays the comic roles. Listen to “Non più andrai” from The Marriage of Figaro by Mozart or “The Catalogue Aria” from Don Giovanni, also by Mozart. BASS: Basses are the lowest and darkest of the male voices. Basses typically play fathers, priests, bad guys, or the Devil. Listen to “O Isis und Osiris” from The Magic Flute or "Le veau d'or" from Faust by Gounod.

Opera Voices

There are four main voice types in singing: Soprano, alto, tenor and bass. In opera, these basic voice parts are divided even more based on the character the voice will represent, and the range (how high and how low) the singer will have to sing. For today, let’s just look at the basics!

Soprano The soprano is the highest female voice. Traditionally in opera, the soprano is the leading lady or the heroine because the high, clear sound of her voice suggests that the character is young, innocent and good.

Mezzo Soprano The mezzo soprano has a lower voice than a soprano. In a choir, she would be an alto. Usually in opera, the mezzo soprano, with her richer, darker voice, plays mother-types, “bad” girls or villainesses. Sometimes, mezzos

also play young men whose voices haven’t changed. This type of role is called a “pants role.”

Tenor Basically, a tenor is the highest male voice. Typically in opera, tenors play the leading men, usually in love with the soprano. Because of their high ringing tones, they often play heroic young men. On very rare occasion they may play a young rogue, but mostly tenors are the good guys.

Baritone or Bass Baritones sing lower than tenors but higher than basses, who are the lowest male voices. Baritones usually play the handsome rogue—a soprano might be seduced by the baritone, but he rarely gets the girl. Sometimes he plays the bad guy. Basses play dads, priests, comic roles or the Devil. Usually.

Soprano Leontyne Price as Aida

Mezzo Soprano Grace Bumbry as Carmen

Tenor Luciano Pavorotti as The Duke in Rigoletto

Bass Cesare Siepi as Don Giovanni

Lesson Plan:

Everyone’s a Critic!

Writing your own review of an opera performance

Overview:

In this lesson plan, students will have the opportunity to think critically about what they are watching and hearing. Students will pretend that they are the classical music reviewer for the local newspaper. Their job is to provide readers with a sense of the performance of The Barber of Seville. A review should include descriptions of the singing, sets, acting and costumes. It is not a reviewer’s job to inform readers if the performance is “good” or “bad.” Instead, a reviewer uses language in such a way that a reader can understand what to expect for a performance without having seen it. This lesson is best used after your students have seen the Portland Opera To Go adaptation of Rossini’s The Barber of Seville. This lesson plan is appropriate for 3rd through 6th grades and is adapted from Houston Opera’s Opera in the Neighborhoods program. This lesson plan could be adapted for older students as well. NOTE: Consider having students bring the handout “Everyone’s a Critic” with a writing utensil to the performance to take notes as they watch. Go over the handout before the show to familiarize students with what they are listening for. Also be mindful of where your students will be seated. If you plan to use this lesson plan, request that your students are seated where they can see but not disturb other student audience members. One could also select sections of a DVD recording of an opera and use this lesson plan.

Learning Objectives:

Students will understand that opera reviews must include descriptive information about the singing, sets, acting, accompaniment and costumes

Students will understand that reviews of live performances are not always subjective and evaluative (for example: the performance was “good” or “bad” or “I liked” or “didn’t like”).

Students will be able to construct a written review with an appropriate audiences in mind using standard English (or Spanish), within a 250-400 word limit.

Optional: Teachers could opt to have students indicate which of the words in their review are adjectives and adverbs or strong, descriptive verbs

Common Core Standards:

Grades 3-6: CC standards for writing: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 CC standards for speaking and listening: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Materials:

Pencils

Paper

Handout “Everyone’s a Critic”

A newspaper review of a live performance or a movie

Prep for Teachers:

Gather materials

Make copies of handout “Everyone’s a Critic”

Make seating arrangements for your students if you will be having them fill out their handouts during the performance

Introductory Activity:

Ask students if they know what a “review” is. Explain that, in this case, a review is an article in a paper that describes a performance of some sort, whether a play, opera, concert or movie. Inform students that a helpful review provides enough detail for the reader to “recreate” aspects of the performance by reading the review. The purpose of writing the review is not to express the reviewer’s feelings about whether the performance was “good” or “bad,” but to accurately describe what the reviewer saw or heard.

Explain that they will be seeing an opera and writing a review. (Explain what an opera is, if students don’t know). Explain that they should think about the singing, sets, costumes, acting and piano accompaniment (or orchestral accompaniment, if using a DVD of an opera). Again, they shouldn’t be subjective and say whether they “liked” those elements or not, but describe what they see or hear and whether everything worked together.

Learning Activities:

Hand out copies of “Everyone’s a Critic” and writing utensils.

Go over the handout, defining terms as necessary. Tell students to use the most descriptive words that they can, including adjectives, adverbs and good action verbs.

Tell students that they will be taking notes as they watch the opera (either the live POGO performance, or selections on DVD).

Watch the Portland Opera To Go performance of The Barber of Seville. (If students are watching a DVD, allow them to watch the clip several times).

After students have completed the handout, instruct them in the appropriate form of a review:

o Introduce the performance (time and place) o Express one’s feelings about the piece (for example, “I always enjoy the funny,

fast-paced action of a Rossini comedy.” Of course…they may not have seen a Rossini comedy, but you get the picture)

o Describe the singing of the cast in general o Describe the singing of an individual performer or two o Describe the playing of the piano accompaniment (or orchestra if watching a

DVD) in terms of how the music sounded (for example, light, heavy, funny, sad) o Describe any aspects of the sets, costumes, and lighting that were of any

interest.

Have students write their reviews, giving them time to revise their work

Have students type or neatly print their review and share it with their classmates by reading it to the class, or allowing a smaller group to read it.

Culminating Activity:

Students should be critics of the review! They should give feedback to the reviewer by considering whether the review was detailed enough and if it provided the reader with a sense of what was performed. If necessary, establish guidelines surrounding the purpose and format of giving feedback to a fellow student.

Everyone’s A Critic!

You review the opera!

Directions: Watch and listen to the performance. Focus on one element at a time (singing, accompaniment, sets, costumes, acting). Write down what you see and hear in the appropriate space. Be as descriptive as possible. SINGING: ACTING: PIANO ACCOMPANIMENT: SETS: COSTUMES:

Name:______________________________Date__________________________

Lesson Plan: How to write your own opera (or at least a really good start!)

Overview:

Lots of operas are based on books or plays. It is very rare for an opera librettist to write a completely original story. This lesson plan provides students the opportunity to adapt a favorite story into an outline for an opera and consider how they might change the story from the written word into actions and dialogue. Students may work individually or in groups to create their outlines. This lesson plan can be done before or after Portland Opera To Go’s visit. It should take two class periods, one to scaffold the information, and another to write their outlines on their own or in groups. This lesson plan will be most successful (at least the second of the two lessons) for fluent readers. For less accomplished readers, teachers may choose to do only the first lesson of this two lesson series, with the class as a whole.

Learning Objectives:

Students will: Sequence a story Decide on the emotional state of characters at given points of the story Learn new vocabulary words: libretto, librettist, recitative, aria, ensemble, duet and

trio Create an outline with help (worksheet) (Optional) Share their outlines with the class and discuss the events they chose and why

in their adaptation. They might also share what they cut out of the story and why. (Optional) Write a reflection describing how they chose what to include in their outline

and what they chose to leave out and supporting their decisions.

Common Core Standards:

CCSSELA.LITERACY. WRITING W3.A, W3.4, W3.5 W4.3A, W4.4, W4.5, W5.3A, W5.4, W5.5

Materials Per Student:

Story of their choice

Writing utensil Copy of the Opera Outline worksheet

Per Group/Class: (If having students working in a group)

Story of group’s choice Writing utensils Copy of the Opera Outline worksheet

Prep for Teachers

Make copies of the Opera Outline Worksheet in this packet Decide whether or not you will have students work individually or in groups Find a copy of the Cinderella story (or a similarly familiar story) for the whole class

example for this lesson. Review example outline enclosed in this packet to familiarize yourself with the process. On a whiteboard, flip chart, or blackboard, copy out the Opera Outline Worksheet for

the first period, when the class will be working as a group. If desired, provide some stories for students to choose from, or assign students to

choose a favorite story to adapt ahead of time. Stories should be short stories, as opposed to chapter books, to facilitate time constraints.

Introductory Activity: (Lesson Period 1)

Explain to students that operas are simply plays set to music Most operas are based on novels or plays that already existed It takes much longer to sing something than to simply say it, so the people who write

the words/story for the opera (the librettists) have to cut out all the parts that are not absolutely necessary to the story that they want to tell.

All of the story has to be told in dialogue (conversations) and actions. The words of an opera are called the libretto.

Dialogue in opera is called recitative. Recitative usually forwards the plot. Opera is full of emotions! Arias are solo songs that allow a character to tell us how they

feel. When two or more characters are singing together, it is called an ensemble. Two

people singing together is called a duet. Today, we are going to try our hands at being opera librettists! We are going to take a

favorite story and strip it down to the essentials, and decide what emotions the characters’ arias should have. First we will do an outline together as a class, and later (whenever the next class period will be), they will have the chance to try it on their own or in small groups (depending upon teacher preference, time or student skill level).

Learning Activities:

For children that have not done outlines, explain that an outline is just a way to organize the most important points of a story or informational text.

Tell students that you are now going to read a story to them. It is a familiar story, but they should listen very carefully and, as they listen, think about the events in the story and the order that they happen.

Read Cinderella, or whatever story you have chosen. After reading the story, tell the students that you are going to work together to decide

the most important parts of the story, working from the three biggest ideas, and then adding a few details.

Ask students to take a quiet minute at their tables (if your classroom is set up in tables, you might want to let the students talk amongst themselves) and come up with three sentences to describe the beginning of the story, the middle of the story and the end of the story. Give them 5 to 7 minutes for this.

Bring everyone together to share their ideas. Using the sample outline you placed on the board, have the class decide which ideas best fit the Beginning, Middle and End sections.

Now tell the students to take a few minutes and think about the emotions the characters in the Beginning, Middle and End sentences feel. Ask them to choose two events for each of their sentences and decide what arias and ensembles the characters would sing to express their emotions.

Bring everyone back together to express their ideas and decide on the most fitting to complete the sample outline.

Culminating Activity:

Congratulate the students on all of their hard work. Remind them that together they created an outline for an opera of a familiar story, and

that they learned about outlines, librettos, librettists, recitatives, arias, and ensembles. If you are going to do the second lesson, tell the learners that next time, they will get to

create opera outlines for their own favorite stories in groups or on their own (again depending on teacher choice).

Ask the children to bring their in their favorite short stories for next time, if you are not providing stories for them.

FOR SECOND CLASS SESSION:

Prep for Teachers:

If not already done, copy the Opera Outline Worksheet for each student. Put up the sample outline that you completed as a class as a guide.

Provide additional familiar stories for students who forgot to bring a story, or could not decide on a story.

Introductory Activity:

Review with students the previous lesson o Ask them to define in discussion: outline, libretto, librettist, recitative, aria,

ensemble, duet and trio

Tell the students that today, they will have the chance to create their own opera outline with a favorite story.

Learning Activities:

If students will be working in groups (recommended), set up the groups. Give a few minutes to the groups to decide on their stories. Be prepared to settle any

disputes or assign a story, as necessary. Distribute the Opera Outline Worksheet to each student or group, as desired. Ask students to read their stories together, thinking about the order of events, and what

is most important about their stories. (These should be short, and take no more than 10 minutes).

Determine whether everyone has finished their stories. Show them the sample outline on the board and have them work as groups or individually to decide on their sentences for the Beginning, Middle and End of their stories and fill them in on their worksheets. Give the most time for this activity.

Determine whether everyone has completed their Beginning, Middle and End sentences. Remind students that last time, they also selected two events/emotions for each sentence to allow their characters to express themselves. Point these steps out on the sample outline you have left up on the board or flip chart.

Allow time for groups or individuals to work out these ideas. Some groups might need help to not get bogged down in this process.

Bring everyone back together.

Culminating Activity:

Once again, congratulate students on their hard work on this process—they have created the outline for an opera libretto!

Ask for volunteers to share their outlines with the class. Ask the volunteers if it was hard to narrow down the story to such a few main ideas.

Why? Ask the other the rest of the class to share their ideas about making these choices. Was it hard? How did they make the decisions?

If time allows, have students write a brief reflection answering these questions:

o How did they decide what was most important in their stories? o Was it hard? Why or why not?

SAMPLE OUTLINE FOR TEACHERS Here’s an example using Hansel and Gretel as the story. Your students may select different details about what is most important. That is perfectly fine!

I. Beginning: Hansel and Gretel live with their parents near the woods. They are very poor and often hungry.

A. Hansel and Gretel sing a duet about how hungry they always are.

B. Hansel and Gretel’s stepmother convinces their father to abandon them in the woods.

II. Middle: Hansel and Gretel follow their parents into the woods and are left alone all

night. In the morning they meet the witch.

A. Hansel and Gretel sing about being afraid and unable to find their way home.

B. The Witch sings a song and enchants the children, imprisoning them.

III. End: Hansel and Gretel realize that the Witch plans to eat them and manage to trick her and escape.

A. Hansel and Gretel sing a recitative plotting their escape.

B. Gretel and the Witch sing a duet in which Gretel tricks the Witch into the oven.

C. Hansel and Gretel rejoice at the Witch’s death and are found by their Father. They sing happily ever after!

OPERA OUTLINE

WORKSHEET

Use the Outline below to create your original opera outline:

Title:____________________________________________

Librettist:_____________________________ (That’s YOU!)

I. Beginning: ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________

A. Song one_______________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________

B. Song two_______________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

II. Middle: ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________

A. Song one_______________________________________________

___________________________________________________________

B. Song two_______________________________________________

___________________________________________________________

III. End_______________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________

A. Song: __________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________ B. Finale (wrap it all up!)____________________________________ ____________________________________________________________

Congratulations! You are all done! You have

written an outline for your very own opera

libretto! Is there a part in it for ME?

Lesson Plan: People Postcards Sequencing a story by creating tableaus

Overview: This lesson provides an opportunity for kinetic learners, ESL students, and other students to sequence a story in an interesting, non-traditional way, while working together and allowing those who are less successful with pencil and paper to contribute to the group. This lesson plan could use any story. This lesson plan is appropriate for kindergartners (with support and guidance) through 3rd grades. The Culminating Activity can be done orally for kindergarteners and first graders.

Learning Objectives:

Students will:

Work in groups of 5 or 6 to sequence a story

Working together as a group create a tableau of each scene in their sequence using their faces and bodies to communicate emotional information for the rest of the class.

Determine what is happening in other groups’ tableaus.

Common Core Standards:

CLSS.ELA.Literacy: RL.K2, K3, K7 RL.1.2, 1.3, 1.7 RL2.1, 2.2, 2.5 RL3.1, 3.2, 3.7

Materials:

Per Group:

Scratch paper and pencil to take notes and organize group

Any simple story (without pictures!) If your students are not yet reading, choose a familiar story (Hansel & Gretel, Cinderella, The Three Bears, etc.) that is easily recalled.

Per Class:

Picture book (any will do, but best if protagonists are people or anthropomorphized animals) as an example. Any of David Weisner’s amazing picture books will do: Tuesday or Sector 7 are amazing wordless picture books. (If you haven’t seen Tuesday, you really must!)

Prep for Teachers:

Create zones, or space for each student group to work. They will need a little space to rehearse their postcards.

Decide on the story (without pictures!) they will create tableaux for.

Write some bullet points on the board: o Decide on 6 events o Decide who will be the “Director” o Decide who will play what role o Decide how your people postcard should look

Introductory Activity:

Ask students if they have ever heard the saying, “A picture is worth a thousand

words.” o Ask them if they agree—why or why not?

Explain that research says that small children get up to 95% of their information visually.

Today we are going to work in groups to tell a story using our bodies and faces, but not our voices. We are going to create pictures with people!

Learning Activities:

Pull out the picture book.

Show the class one of the pictures in the books. o Have a group of volunteers look at the picture and then put themselves in the

same position/s as the characters in the picture and freeze. This is what they will be doing with the 6 events of the story they are about to hear.

Instruct kids to listen carefully to the story they are about to hear, thinking what important things happen in the story.

Read the story to the class aloud.

Break kids up into groups of 5 or 6 (adjust according to the size of your class.)

o Tell them that first they must work together to decide which 6 events in the story are the most important. (Depending on their age, you can provide them a copy of the story as well)

o Then they should choose a “director” for the group. A director in a play helps the actors to know what to do. They are usually very visual people who help to tell the story by showing the audience through actions. This person will make sure that the postcard “looks right” and make sure that everyone has an appropriate expression on their face.

o After they have chosen a director, the group should decide who will play what character. If there is a disagreement, the director will be the tiebreaking vote.

o After they have determined who will be what character, the group, with guidance from the director, will create pictures/postcards of each event they have sequenced in the story.

After students have created their people postcards, it is time to share with the class. o Audience members should be reminded of proper etiquette—they should be

quiet and respectful as they watch the postcards and after each group is through, they should applaud the group’s efforts. Remember, everyone will have their turn up there!

o Groups should show their postcards, one at a time. The audience should answer the following questions for each postcard:

What is happening in this scene? Who is playing what character (i.e. stepsister, Cinderella, Prince) What is each character feeling (using facial cues and body language)

Culminating Activity:

Students should write a paragraph for the following questions:

Is it easier to understand a story told in words or pictures? o Why?

How do words and pictures work together to tell a story?

Lesson Plan: Words for Music

Comparing story-telling across genres

Overview:

Rossini’s opera The Barber of Seville is based upon a play by Pierre Cardin Augustin de Beaumarchais (known simply as Beaumarchais), The Barber of Seville. The play and libretto are both available for free in English translations online. The play is available at the Online Library of Liberty at http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/1562. The libretto is available at Operas, Arias, Composers at http://www.opera-arias.com/rossini/il-barbiere-di-siviglia/libretto/english/ . In this lesson plan, students will have the opportunity to read Beaumarchais’ play The Barber of Seville and the libretto of Rossini’s opera The Barber of Seville by Cesare Sterbini, and compare the narrative techniques employed by the playwright versus the librettist, as well as the content. This is a multi-lesson activity, and could be expanded to include a discussion of the politics of the play, which is highly political for the time that it was written, versus the opera libretto, in which the politics have been stripped out. This activity is best done after the students have seen Portland Opera To Go’s adaptation of The Barber of Seville, and is most appropriate for high school students.

Learning Objectives:

Students will:

Learn biographical background on both Beaumarchais and Rossini

Understand what a libretto and librettist is

Explain the differences and similarities between a libretto and a play

Compare the narratives of Beaumarchais’ play and Rossini’s opera

Speculate on why a librettist might alter an original story or the text of a play when adapting it to suit an opera

Common Core Standards:

CCSS.ELA Literacy.RL.9-10.7, RL.9-10.9, RL.9-10.10 CCSS.ELA Literacy.RL.11-12.3, RL.11-12.5, RL.11-12.7

Materials:

Enough copies of the English language translation of Beaumarchais’ play, The Barber of Seville, for each student to have one

Enough copies of the English language translation of Sterbini’s libretto, The Barber of Seville, for each student to have one.

Copies of the articles Who Was Beaumarchais?, Meet the Composer, and What About the Play? from the Portland Opera To Go The Barber of Seville Teacher’s Guide.

The play and libretto are both available for free in English translations online. The play is available at the Online Library of Liberty at http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/1562. The libretto is available at Operas, Arias, Composers at http://www.opera-arias.com/rossini/il-barbiere-di-siviglia/libretto/english/ . You may choose to have students download this material themselves instead of providing it.

Prep for Teachers:

Read Beaumarchais’ The Barber of Seville

Read the libretto for Rossini’s The Barber of Seville

Read Who was Beaumarchais, Meet the Composer and What About the Play from The Teacher’s Guide and make copies of these articles for your students

If providing copies of the play and libretto, make copies for the students

Introductory Activity:

Ask students to identify some movies that were adapted from novels or plays o Were there differences between the original work and the movie? o What were they? o Why do you think the screenwriter made those changes?

Explain that just as a screenwriter sometimes adapts a play for a movie, opera librettists sometimes adapt plays for operas.

o An opera libretto is the words and story of an opera, including stage directions. o Because of the nature of music (it takes longer to sing something than to say

something—especially when you have repeated text, as in the course of a song), librettists (the artists who write the words to a libretto) often have to shorten or streamline stories, deleting characters or plot elements and focusing on specific moments or characters from the plot.

o Like a movie, operas “show” audiences the things a novelist might describe, so librettists and playwrights write dialogue almost exclusively. That dialogue, in turn, when created for a libretto, is often written as poetry rather than prose, to fit with music the composer will write.

The opera, The Barber of Seville, is based on a play by Pierre Cardin Augustin Beaumarchais, who during the period of the French Revolution and filled his play with revolutionary ideas. In fact, his play was banned.

Learning Activities:

Activity 1:

Distribute copies of Who was Beaumarchais?, What about the Play?, and Meet the

Composer. These might be too long to read during class, so you might consider assigning them as homework.

Have students read the articles and answer the following questions, either in written form, or during class discussion:

o Compare Rossini’s and Beaumarchais lives? When did they live? When were they active in their creative lives?

o It is interesting that both the play and the opera were fiascos when they first opened. Describe the similarities or differences between the two disastrous opening nights.

o Why do you think each artist might have wanted to tackle this material? Can you speculate on the purpose for each of these works of art? Beaumarchais’ play? Rossini’s opera?

Activity 2:

Distribute copies of the libretto for The Barber of Seville to the entire class

Distribute copies of the play The Barber of Seville to students (If you feel that reading the entire play is too much for your students, assign different sections to different groups of students and distribute selections accordingly.)

Have students write essays answering the following questions: o What are the similarities and differences between the play (or your section of

the play) and the libretto? Consider events, character, setting, etc. It may be that your section of the play is not in the libretto. Why might

that be? o Why do you think the librettist chose to make the alterations to the play that he

did?

o Is it apparent in the play that Beaumarchais was a musician and used lots of music in his original concept for the play? Support your answer with examples from the play.

o Considering the Portland Opera To Go production of The Barber of Seville, which itself is an adaptation based on the opera, how do you think the music affects your response to the piece?

Culminating Activity:

Have students report back to class what they discovered about the differences and similarities between the play and the libretto. If you had the students read only sections of the play, have them describe the section they read and how it was different or similar to the libretto or if it even appeared in the libretto (you may choose to have the groups of students who read the same section work together on a brief summary presentation).

Have students consider the politics they encountered in Beaumarchais’ play. Does it surprise them that this play was considered “dangerous” by authorities? The sequel, The Marriage of Figaro, also by Beaumarchais, was banned throughout Europe for its ideas. What parts of the play might be considered “dangerous” in an absolute monarchy? What ideals do you think Beaumarchais holds after reading his play?

Lesson Plan: Translations

Libretto, Poem and Modern Prose

Overview:

Opera librettists have a tough job—they have to create a dramatic text for song. This sometimes means condensing a story, manipulating language so that it is easy to sing, and sounds good sung, as well as try to create a piece of art that can stand on its own. Opera librettists throughout the literature have had varying levels of success at all of these tasks! In this lesson plan, students will have the opportunity to evaluate the libretto (in English translation) of The Barber of Seville and then create their own modern prose “translation” of the libretto. Both the original and their librettos will be read in class, and students will get ponder the challenges and opportunities inherent in writing words for music. This lesson plan can be broken into 4 sessions. This lesson plan is suitable with modifications for 6th grade and up.

Learning Objectives:

Students will:

Read the libretto for The Barber of Seville by Cesare Sterbini (available online here: http://www.opera-arias.com/rossini/il-barbiere-di-siviglia/libretto/english/

Do a dramatic reading of the libretto

Re-write the libretto into modern language—including slang, if they wish

Perform a dramatic reading of their librettos

Consider the possible impact of music on each libretto

Common Core Standards:

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.6.2a, W6.3b, W6.3d, W.7.3a-e, RL.8.5, RL.8.3, RL.8.2, RL.11-12.7

Materials:

Multiple copies of the English translation of the libretto for The Barber of Seville

Paper, writing utensils

Group work stations

Performance area in the classroom

Prep for Teachers:

Obtain copies of English translation for the libretto of The Barber of Seville (available

online here: http://www.opera-arias.com/rossini/il-barbiere-di-siviglia/libretto/english/)

Create group work stations/areas, if necessary

Create a performance space in the classroom, if necessary

Provide paper/writing utensils as needed

Read the libretto for The Barber of Seville and, depending on the size of your class, and time available, determine the scenes which each group will perform for the class, making sure to cover all of the major plot points.

Introductory Activity:

Ask students to brainstorm titles to some of their favorite songs; write them on the board.

Ask if anyone can recite the words to any of the suggested songs. If they start to sing the song, gently correct them and ask them to speak the words.

If the recitation is without emotion (and it may be if the student is feeling odd speaking the words), have them do it again, “with feeling.”

After the recitation, give the student a round of applause and ask the class if hearing the words without the music made a difference to their understanding and/or enjoyment of the song.

Explain that writing words for music can be a very different process than writing a poem or a story, or even a play, and that it is a challenge faced by opera librettists (the person who writes the words to an opera) every day. Opera librettists often have to condense stories; they have to create words that are easy to sing; they may have to write words that have certain rhythms to them. All of these are challenges to the libretto as a stand-alone piece of art.

Today, we are going to look at the libretto for The Barber of Seville, and later, we will have the opportunity to update this libretto in groups.

Learning Activities:

Session 1

Break class into groups of 5-7, depending on the scenes that each group will perform.

Distribute copies of the libretto to each student. o Ideally, each student will read the entire libretto, and then focus on the

assigned scene which their group will perform; however, if time does not

permit this, you may elect to have the students focus only on their assigned section of the libretto. The disadvantage to this option is, of course, that your students will lose the context of their scene, which may affect their performance.

After having read the libretto, students will decide within their group, which member will play which role for the assigned scene and begin to rehearse the scene for the readers’ theater presentation

Session 2

Presentation of scenes

If students have seen the Portland Opera To Go presentation of The Barber of Seville, lead a discussion about the difference they perceive of the words of the libretto on their own and set to music.

Session 3

In their groups, students work to write a modern version of The Barber of Seville, for the scene that they were assigned earlier.

Session 4

Presentation of scenes groups have re-written to class

Culminating Activity:

Discuss the challenges and opportunities inherent in the writing of their scene. Would the addition of music change what they had written? If they knew their words would be set to music, would they have written it differently?

Lesson Plan: What Happens Next?

Writing a sequel to The Barber of Seville

Overview:

Students will have the opportunity to think about the characters and situations in The Barber of Seville in a creative way, by writing a sequel to the opera. Of course, The Barber of Seville has a rather famous sequel in The Marriage of Figaro, but your students may or may not be familiar with Mozart’s popular operatic masterpiece, and probably are not familiar with Beaumarchais’ brilliant play. They will have a chance to come up with something new and original to them. This lesson plan is best used after students have seen Portland Opera To Go’s adaptation of Rossini’s The Barber of Seville and is suitable for students in 6th-8th grades.

Learning Objectives:

Students will:

Use comprehension skills and creative writing skills

Brainstorm possible outcomes for various characters in the story

Demonstrate knowledge of the characters and situations of The Barber of Seville by writing a cohesive sequel

Create their own original book by writing and illustrating their sequel

Common Core Standards:

CCSS.ELA.LITERACY: W.6.3a-e

W.7.3a-e

W.8.3a-e

Materials:

Copies of The Plot—Briefly from the Portland Opera To Go The Barber of Seville Teachers Guide for each student as a reminder (included after this lesson plan)

Paper, pencils, colored pencils, etc.

Prep for Teachers:

Gather materials

Review plot of The Barber of Seville

Introductory Activity:

Ask students to remember the opera they saw in school, The Barber of Seville

Have them recall the story as best they can

Ask the students what a sequel is

Have them list some books or movies with sequels

Today we will be thinking about what might happen to the characters in The Barber of Seville five years after the action of the opera and writing a sequel

Learning Activities:

Distribute The Plot—Briefly as a reference

Optional: Read The Plot together as a class

Have students brainstorm ideas about what might happen to one or all of the characters

Write down the ideas and encourage creativity consistent with what they know of the characters from the opera

Tell the students that now it is their turn! o Have them write their sequel

This process could include editing and revision Have students make books and illustrate their sequel, being sure to

create a cover and credit themselves as author and illustrator!

Culminating Activity:

Give students an opportunity to share their work, either by presenting it to the class themselves or in reading stations

Have students respond to each other’s work in class, sharing anything that particularly surprised them or that they particularly liked.

The Plot--Briefly

Rosina has moved to Alta California to live with her wealthy Uncle Bartolo. As the opera begins,

Rosina has newly arrived in town and she and Uncle Bartolo are seen on the street outside

Bartolo’s house. Rosina and a handsome young man (Almaviva) spy each other and are

instantly smitten with one another. While Bartolo stops to adjust his shoe, Rosina tries to

communicate with Almaviva to no avail. Bartolo whisks Rosina into the house. A few moments

later, Rosina appears with a note which she tries unsuccessfully to pass to Almaviva. Bartolo is

suspicious and intervenes, ordering Rosina back into the house. Frustrated, Almaviva leaves,

not noticing his old friend and confidant, Figaro, who has seen everything.

Figaro introduces himself, declaring that he is so much more than a barber! He knows

everything, sees everything, and can solve any problem—that is why he is in such demand.

Figaro hands out business cards to all he meets, and as he is preening, Almaviva notices him,

and approaches him to get reacquainted. Almaviva a wealthy ranchero, who wants for nothing,

explains that he is in love with Rosina—but Figaro already knows. As they are talking, Rosina

appears in the window of the house and waves a note, which she quickly drops to the ground,

just as Uncle Bartolo begins to question her about it. She denies even having a note, but he

hustles off downstairs to find out what fluttered out the window. Almaviva has already

scooped it up, before Bartolo arrives. Bartolo, assuming that the wind blew it away, shrugs and

disappears back into the house.

Almaviva is overjoyed to receive her note, until he discovers that it is entirely in Spanish.

Rosina, you see, speaks only Spanish, recently arrived as she is from Spain. But Almaviva, the

son of a Mexican ranchero was born in Alta California, and his Spanish is very limited. Figaro,

brilliant and bilingual translates the note, in which she professes her affection for Almaviva, but

reveals that her Uncle Bartolo wants to marry her off to one of his rich, elderly friends.

Incredibly moved, Almaviva serenades Rosina from the street.

Figaro pledges to help Almaviva win the girl of his heart (for a price!), and the two quickly come

up with a plan to get Almaviva inside the house to speak with Rosina in person. They will

disguise Almaviva as a soldier who has been ordered to lodge in Bartolo’s house. They hustle

off to execute their plan.

Meanwhile, Rosina asserts her independence and swears that she will get the better of Uncle

Bartolo.

Figaro arrives to do Rosina’s hair and

tells Rosina that the young man under

her window is his friend, Lindoro

Almaviva, who is very much in love

with her.

Almaviva arrives, disguised a soldier

and bangs loudly at the door. Bartolo

at first refuses him entry, but

overwhelmed by his bluster,

eventually is brushed aside. Rosina is

startled (and delighted) to see him.

The situation becomes even more

confused as Bartolo enters.

Frustrated and irritated, Bartolo finally shoos Figaro and the supposed soldier towards the

door, but the “soldier” is really Rosina in disguise. In the meanwhile, Almaviva has changed

costumes and appears now as Rosina’s music teacher, much to Bartolo’s confusion!

Almaviva, in the role of music teacher, then gives a voice lesson to Rosina during which they

flirt, while Bartolo dozes off.

Figaro enters to give Bartolo his shave and haircut. As he does so, the lovers plot their

elopement. Bartolo overhears them, though, and decides that he must marry Rosina off

immediately. When he goes off for the marriage license, Figaro and Almaviva arrive with a

ladder to spirit Rosina away. They climb in through the window. Bartolo returns for a moment,

sees the ladder and takes it away, before hurrying off for the license. Meanwhile, Rosina seems

upset when she sees Almaviva and accuses him of being a ladies’ man, which her Uncle Bartolo

told her. Almaviva protests his innocence and proves his devotion. As the three are about to

make good their escape they notice that the ladder is gone. Bartolo returns with the license.

The intended groom has not arrived and neither has the notary to witness the wedding. Figaro

volunteers, and with some clever sleight of hand manages to marry Almaviva and Rosina, and

convince Bartolo that all is well. They all live happily ever after.

Lesson Plans:

Social Studies Mark Your Territory Know Your Boundaries (math

component) Make It Pay Brand Recognition

Lesson Plan:

Mark your territory! Read and create a diseño

The next several lesson plans were adapted from activities developed by

California State University, San Bernadino, and were originally intended for use

with the Harcourt Reflections textbook. Specific credit goes to Cathy Spiess and

Mark Bourgeois for several of the activities. These lesson plans have been

expanded and adapted so that no textbook is needed. They are fully aligned to

meet Common Core Standards and suitable with adjustments for all elementary

grades.

Overview: During Mexican rule in California, the Mexican government issued thousands of land grants

creating rancheros, with the purpose of encouraging Mexican people to settle in the new

territories. This lesson plan, in which students read and create a diseño of a rancho, works in

tandem with the other Social Studies lesson plans to understand and answer the focus

questions:

1. What is a rancho? 2. What did the ranchos contribute to the economic development of California? 3. What was life like on a rancho?

Learning Objectives: Students will be able to answer the following questions:

o What is a rancho? o What is a diseño? o How were ranchos obtained? o Why were ranchos granted? o What did rancheros do on ranchos?

Students will examine and interpret an example of a diseño from 1841.

Students will draw a diseño of their school grounds.

Students will create a diseño for an imaginary rancho

Oregon State Social Studies Standards: (adopted 2011, aligned with Common Core)

Geography Core Standard: K.7, K.9, K.11, 1.10, 2.7, 2.8, 2.9, 2.10, 3.7, 5.7, 5.8, 5.9

Historical Knowledge Core Standards: 5.2, 6.1, 6.2

Materials: Per Student:

Copy of Diseño del Rancho del San Miguelito handout

Copy of Background Article Mexican Land Grants (for fluent readers)

Copy of Handout Drawing a Diseño

Paper (regular paper and large pieces of paper bag for Activity 2)

Pencils and/or crayons for sketching

Per Group/Class:

Compass (for determining magnetic north)

Large bucket/pail for water (optional)

Tea bags (optional)

Prep for Teachers:

Gather materials

Arrange for time outside on the school grounds besides recess, if necessary

Read Background Article

Introductory Activity: Remind students of Portland Opera To Go’s performance of The Barber of Seville.

Remind them that Almaviva was a wealthy ranchero, who owned a large rancho outside of the pueblo where Rosina lived.

Explain that rancheros who lived during that period didn’t buy their land. Instead, they were given land grants by the Mexican Government. If you are teaching fluent readers, distribute copies of Mexican Land Grants, and either allow time for independent reading, or read together as a class. If not, summarize the content of the article in an age appropriate way.

Ask students the following to check for comprehension: o What is a rancho? What is a pueblo? What is a mission? What is a diseño? o Why did the Mexican government offer land grants? o How did a ranchero receive a land grant? o How large were ranchos, usually? o What did rancheros do for a living? o Why were conditions on the ranchos perfect for raising cattle? o How did the Indians lose their land?

Remind students that a ranchero had to petition the Mexican government to be awarded a land grant. In order to do so, they had to provide a diseño. Explain to

students that you will be examining a picture of an actual diseño from 1841, and creating a diseño of the school grounds.

Learning Activities:

Activity 1:

Distribute copies of Diseño del Rancho del San Miguelito

Examine the diseño together as a class o Ask students to identify all of the physical and human features

visible on the diseño. Let students know that a diseño can be difficult to read.

o Write down features that students identify on a black board or white board to use as reference when they are creating their diseños of the school grounds.

o Ask students what the advantages and disadvantages might be for using natural landmarks.

Have each student draw a diseño of the school grounds. o Take students outside with drawing paper and pencils. o Select a vantage point at the center of the playground. Include

natural boundaries such as any trees, plants, etc., and manmade landmarks. Refer to Handout Drawing a Diseño for additional instructions.

Activity 2:

Tell students that a “fictional” Mexican governor is planning to grant each of them his or her own rancho. First, students have to create an appropriate Spanish name for their rancho. Then they need to draw a diseño, showing the physical landmarks on their property. (Don’t forget to mark the diseño with the name of the rancho!) If desired, students may also show the location of their home on their diseño. To make the diseño look more realistic, draw the diseño on a brown paper bag, or on brown craft paper and then crumple the bag to give it an “old” look. Students can dip their bags into weak tea to make the bags look more like parchment paper. If crayons are used, the drawing will not fade when it is dipped in tea.

NOTE: This activity may be done in class, or assigned as homework.

Culminating Activity:

Students should display their completed diseños by posting them around the classroom.

After students tour each other’s diseños, have students stand with their diseño and share it with the class, starting with the significance of their rancho’s name, and pointing out important landmarks on the diseño, and why it might be important to the rancho (River? Trees?)

This diseño depicts the Rancho San Miguelito (now part of Fort Hunter Liggett). The ranch house is shown at or near the site of the current San Miguelito ranch - near the confluence of Stony Creek, which flows south from Stony Valley at the north (bottom) side of the map, and the Nacimiento River, flowing along the south (top) side. This diseño rises to the level of folk art - note the bear and other animals.

Mexican Land Grants

This article is adapted from the website Social Studies Fact Cards: California

Ranchos. http://factcards.califa.org/ran.overview.html

WORDS TO WATCH FOR:

Mission: The Spanish

government established missions

with the help of various religious

orders to convert the native

populations to Catholicism and

establish a foothold in new

territories. Under law, after ten

years the mission land was

supposed to revert back to native

control and ownership. Needless

to say, this did not happen often.

Pueblos: Towns which have a

small village center and are

surrounded by fields. There are

no outlying farms. The Spanish government established pueblos with the goal of

populating them with Hispanic people.

Ranchos: Government land granted ranches. Both the Spanish and the Mexican

governments granted ranchos. A rancho is a tract of land used for raising cattle, sheep

and horses. This Spanish word has come into the English language as “ranch.”

Diseño: A map which identified a rancho’s specific parcel of land by showing its

distinctive landmarks and natural boundaries. A ranchero needed a diseño in order to

Map of Orange County ranchos

apply for a land grant. The hand-drawn map showed the boundaries of the land grant.

The diseño would include natural landmarks such as hills, creek beds, isolated trees,

clumps of cacti—even skulls of cattle set on top of a pile of stones!

When Mexico became independent from Spain in 1821, the Mexican government

wanted people to settle in California. To encourage settlement, they offered land.

Mexican colonization laws passed in 1824 and 1828 allowed the grants of title to

the land. This meant that the person receiving the land actually owned it, rather

than just being allowed to use the land by the government, as was true of Spanish

“land grants.” Many of the people who had been given use permits previously by

Spanish governors now applied for Mexican grants for the same land, to make

sure that they could keep their land.

A rancho scene from Monterey, California from 1849. Take a minute to look at this picture. What kinds of people do you see? What kinds of activities are they doing?

When they applied for a land grant, the rancheros had to include a diseño with

their application. They would make a vista de ojos (“survey-by-eye”) to make their

map, drawing the major physical landmarks as well as any human-made features.

If a ranchero was approved for a land grant, he would receive a “concedo” or

provisional ownership. This meant the ranchero would have to build and occupy a

house and corral, stock the land with cattle and plant something within the year.

From 1822 to 1846, hundreds of rancho land grants were given to individuals by

Mexican governors. Mexican law stated that the grants could not exceed eleven

leagues (a “square league” contained about 4,500 acres). Actually, most ranchos

were five leagues (about 22,500 acres) or less. Some families, however, managed

to get several adjoining grants so that they formed very large ranchos of 300,000

acres or more!

Most ranchos were located along the western part of California along the path of

the old Spanish missions. The missions were “secularized” (meaning the land was

taken from the Catholic Church by the government) between 1834 and 1836. This

meant that the mission lands were then available to individuals, even though the

original plan for the missions is that the land would be returned to the native

peoples, the Indian tribes who had lived there before the Spanish came. For the

most part this did not happen, and the Mexican government granted over 300

ranchos from mission lands. A few Indians were given grants of mission lands, but

most of these lost their land to Mexican ranch owners who traded liquor or sacks

of goods to the Indians in exchange for their land.

Drawing a Diseño

You will be drawing a diseño (a drawing of a piece of land) of your school grounds.

Here’s how to do it:

Make a “vista de ojos” (survey by eye) as you, the mapmaker, walk over the area.

Take a pad of paper pencil and a compass to the school playground

Locate some obvious physical landmarks, such as trees, buildings, play equipment, areas of grass or blacktop, planting boxes, etc.

Standing in one spot, and only using your eyes, draw the topography of the school grounds. Try to draw the individual landmarks as much to scale as possible, so decided ahead of time how big the whole map will be.

On your diseño, label the physical landmarks you have identified.

Lesson Plan:

Know your boundaries! Measurement with a reata

Overview: Adapted from lesson plans developed at California State University, San Bernadino. The activity was developed by Cathy Spiess and Mark Bourgeois. It has been expanded and adapted to meet Common Core Math Standards. In this lesson plan, students will have the opportunity to make and use a reata as a measuring tool. The lesson plan has students measuring the playground, but this lesson may be expanded easily to incorporate more math skills, such as calculating perimeters and areas of the playground, black top, grassy area, etc. Students can make sketches to record their measurements on and convert their reata measurements into inches/feet/meters.

Learning Objectives: Students will:

Braid a reata out of yarn

Work in pairs to measure large areas (i.e. the playground) and calculate its perimeter and area based on their reata measurements

Record their results in sketch(es)

Common Core Standards: CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.1.MD.A.2, CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.2.MD.A.1, CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.2.MD.A.3, CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.2.MD.B.5, CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.3.MD.C.5, CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.3.MD.D.8, CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.4.MD.A.1, CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.4.MD.A.3, CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.5.MD.A.1

Materials:

Per Student:

Pencil and paper

Handout Measuring with a Reata

If desired, provide students with an outline of the playground—or have them draw it themselves!

Per Group/Class: Each pair of students will need:

Three lengths each of three different colors of yarn, each length being approximately 40 inches long.

Handout Measuring with a Reata

Prep for Teachers:

Gather materials

Prepare lengths of yarn for students

Introductory Activity:

Remind students of their vocabulary words: deseño, rancho, and ranchero. Add another vaquero to the list. Explain that a vaquero is a cowboy or cattle driver and worked on the rancho.

Explain to students that a ranchero like Almaviva in Portland Opera To Go’s The Barber of Seville would have to know the size of his rancho, but that at the time, precise measurements of land grants were unavailable, because measurement tools were fairly crude and imprecise. Measurements were made with a reata. A reata was a 50-60 foot rope typically made from leather or braided horsehair. Two vaqueros would go out to measure the land using the reata. A pole would be tied to each end of the reata. One of the vaqueros would hold one of the poles while the other would walk or ride his horse until the reata was stretched out. They would repeat the same procedure taking turns until the area was measured.

Tell students that today, they will be vaqueros working for Almaviva. They will be making their own reatas and measuring the playground with it, and (if age appropriate) calculating the perimeter of the playground in “reatas” and converting that to more standard measurements like inches/feet/yards/meters, etc.

Learning Activities: Make your reata! (Braiding can be difficult for young children if they haven’t done it,

hence the different colored yarn, and your demonstration) o Distribute a set of yarn to each pair of students. Each set of students

receives three 40 inch lengths of each of three colors of yarn (for example: 3 red lengths of yarn, 3 green lengths of yarn and 3 white lengths of yarn).

o Knot the lengths of yarn together at one end. o Have one student hold the knotted end so both their partners’ hands are free

to braid the lengths. o Tell the students to separate the colors: red to the left, green in the middle,

white to the right (or whatever colored yarn you choose). o Use the color names to help the students know which length to braid as you

demonstrate. The reata should be braided tightly! o Once the reata is finished and tied off at the bottom, hand out copies of

Measuring with a Reata and take your students out to the playground to measure its perimeter with their reata.

o Students can use their handouts to record their playground’s measurements and then answer the questions based upon their measurements (if grade level appropriate).

Culminating Activity:

After students have completed their measurements, gather them together to

discuss the following questions: o Was it hard to measure with the reata? Why or why not? o What are the advantages to this type of measuring? Disadvantages?

Measuring with a Reata

Name:______________________________Date__________________________

Almaviva is hoping to get another land grant to add to his ranchero. In order to

apply, he needs to send out his vaqueros to measure the parcel of land using their

reatas. You and a partner are his vaqueros! Using the reata you made in class,

measure your school’s playground or other large area your teacher indicates and

write down your measurements below:

Side 1 is ________reatas long. Side 2 is _________ reatas long.

Side 3 is _________reatas long. Side 4 is _________reatas long.

If your playground has more than 4 sides, enter any additional measurements

below:

After taking your measurements, answer the following questions:

1. Using your reata measurments, sketch your playground in the space below using a ruler and converting “reatas” to centimeters.

Name:______________________________Date__________________________

2. Your reata is about 40 inches long. Calculate how many inches long each side of your playground is. Show your work. How many feet long is each side of your playground (your answer may be in feet and inches, for instance, “Side one is 7 feet, 3 inches long.”)

3. Find the perimeter of your playground in reatas, inches, feet and yards. Which unit of measurement is the most useful in this case? Why?

Name:______________________________Date__________________________

Challenge!

Find the area of your playground using reatas and then convert that to feet and

inches. If your playground is unevenly shaped, use sketches to figure out the area.

Lesson Plan:

Make it pay! The economy of the rancho

Overview: This is a fairly simple lesson plan that nevertheless allows your students to practice reading for comprehension as well as note taking skills. It has been adapted from a lesson plan created by California State University, San Bernadino. By filling out a chart, students learn to listen to a “lecture,” jot down notes, and then have the opportunity to complete anything missing from their chart by reading the material for themselves. Students also learn about the economy of the rancho and how people lived on ranchos.

Learning Objectives: Students will:

Learn about how ranchero families used the land to supply food, clothing, shelter and money.

Take notes based on an aural “lecture” read by the teacher by filling out the How We Live on the Rancho Handout

Finish filling out the How We Live on the Rancho chart by reading the article How We Lived on the Rancho, which the teacher will read aloud.

Students will answer the questions “How do you think ranchero families used the land to supply food, clothing, shelter and money?” through words and pictures in a written reflection.

Common Core Standards: Anchor Standards for Reading: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.1, CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.2, CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.3, CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.4 Anchor Standards for Writing: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.W.2, CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.W.3, CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.W.4, CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.W.10 Anchor Standards for Speaking and Listening: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.SL.2 Anchor Standards for College Readiness Language Acquisition: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.L.1, CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.L.2, CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.L.6

Materials:

Per Student:

Writing utensils

How We Live on the Rancho Chart Handout

How We Live on the Rancho Article

Packet of pictures (optional. Use only if no overhead projector is available to share pictures with the class. Could also simply make packets to share with tables or groups)

Paper (for Culminating Activity) Per Group/Class:

Overhead projector (if none available, pictures can be photocopied to hand out to students)

Ranch Living illustrations packet

Prep for Teachers:

Make copies of How We Live on the Rancho Chart handout and article.

Make copies of Rancho Living illustrations if no projector is available.

Introductory Activity:

Remind students of Portland Opera To Go’s production of The Barber of Seville. Remind students that Almaviva was a wealthy landowner called a ranchero, living in Alta California. Rancheros owned ranchos (the word from which our English word “ranch” comes), which employed many different types of people to do the many different jobs that were necessary to make a working ranchero profitable.

Ask students, “How do you think the families of the ranchos used the land to supply food, clothing, shelter and money?”

Go on a “Picture Walk” through the picture packet, either on the overhead together as a class, or with picture packets you have distributed to individual students, or to their tables.

As you go on your “Picture Walk”, ask students questions about what they think is happening in the pictures. Ask them about what tools they see, or the people they see. (Consider explaining too that these are illustrations, not photographs, and that while they depict activities that would have happened on the ranchero, they are still artists’ interpretations, not photographs.)

After the “Picture Walk” and discussion, tell students that today they are going to learn about the economy of the ranchero, or how people on the rancho used the land to supply food, clothing, shelter and money.

Learning Activities:

Distribute the How We Live on the Rancho Chart Handout to each student.

Go over the different categories on the chart with them.

Explain to the students that you are now going to tell/read to them about life on the rancho. Tell them that you will read the selection twice. The first time, they should listen. The second time, they should fill out the chart the best they can as you read. Explain that they should just jot down basic ideas to help them remember how people live on the rancho.

After you have completed the reading, distribute copies of the How We Live on the Rancho article to each of the students and have them fill in any of the blanks on their chart that they missed. Remind them to use or jot down words that might have been unfamiliar to them like, rancho, ranchero, vaquero, rodeo, mantaza, tallow, reata, meriendas, fiestas, etc. They will be using these words to write their stories.

Culminating Activity:

After the students have completed their How We Live on the Rancho chart, bring them together to discuss any words or concepts that they were unfamiliar with or didn’t understand.

Write the following words on the white/blackboard, flip chart or overhead: rancho, ranchero, vaquero, rodeo, mantaza, tallow, reata, merienda, fiesta, mantilla, rebozo, pueblo, carreta, mayordomo, etc. Define them together as a class.

Have children write a story about Almaviva and Rosina’s life together as newlyweds on Almaviva’s rancho. This story is to be realistic fiction, using facts they have just learned about life on the rancho in a fictional narrative. Have them use at least 6 of the vocabulary words. Tell them they can refer back to their notes on their chart.

If students wish, they can illustrate their stories.

Students should share their work in small groups.

NOTE: The writing activity could be assigned as homework.

How We Live on the Rancho The economy of the rancho

Cattle were the mainstay of the rancho economy. Unlike the missionaries whose

land was used to cultivate grapes, figs, citrus fruit and olives, the rancheros used the

land for only one product: cattle. There was a great deal of money to be made from

cattle hides because these were in great demand back on the east coast. Tallow

(hard fat obtained from parts of the bodies of cattle) was melted down for the type

of fat appropriate to make candles and soap. The cattle were an important source of

meat for food. In addition, ranchers tanned the cattle hides which were then made

into saddles, shoes, harnesses and reatas. ( A reata was a 50-60 foot rope typically

made from leather or braided horsehair. ) The hides were used as “money,”

permitting a barter system for supplies from the American east coast. Each dried

steer hide, referred to as a “California bank note,” was worth approximately one

dollar. The rancheros traded the hides for goods that they could not make

themselves, including silk, shoes and china.

The hides were part of an economic cycle. At the beginning of the cycle, the cattle

were allowed to mature. Mature cattle were slaughtered for their hides, tallow and

meat. Then the cattle hide was cured and tanned. Tanned hides were sold and taken

to factories on the east coast. Factory workers turned the tanned hides into specific

leather goods. These leather goods were often sold to the rancheros as finished

products. Now the cycle that began with the rancheros and their cattle and ended

when the cattle products were used and sold back to the same rancheros was

complete.

Supplies of clothing were always in short supply on the rancho. Unavailable items

tended to be shoes, silk stockings and other articles of clothing such as a rebozo or

mantilla (a lightweight lace or scarf work over the head and shoulders, often over a

high tortoise shell comb worn in the hair). Men wore full length trousers with the

exterior seams decorated and open to show a different colored fabric beneath.

On the rancho, most children did not learn to read and write because there were

almost no schools in California. Some ranchos were lucky when a discharged soldier

moved in with them. The former soldier, in most cases, could read, write, and

perform basic arithmetic, which he then would teach to the children. A wealthy

ranchero and his wife might teach their children these skills themselves or hire a

tutor.

Rancho life could be very fun! While people on the rancho worked hard, they also

made time for picnics or meriendas, which were very popular. The ranchero rode his

horse and the women or children arrived in two-wheeled carts (carretas) pulled by

oxen. Wonderful food was eaten at the meriendas, like carne asada (roasted beef),

roasted chicken, enchiladas, tamales and tortillas. In addition, rancheros and their

families and employees celebrated life with fiestas, barbecues and dances. Popular

dances at the time were the fandango and the jarabe. Vaqueros enjoyed showing

off their skills at rodeos. This rancho lifestyle and Californian traditions including

fiestas with music and dancing, rodeos and gracious hospitality, continued until

1860.

Hard work made it possible to have wonderful parties. Many ranchos were hundreds

of acres in size, because rancheros needed a lot of land to provide enough grass for

their cattle to eat. The ranchero might hire as many as 100 workers to do the work

of the rancho. Ranchos were nearly self-sufficient. They made almost everything

needed by the people living on them. With the nearest pueblo often more than a

day’s ride away, people had to grow or make most of what they needed. The

rancheros grew their own food, raised their own cattle and sheep, and wove their

own wool into cloth.

In the spring, soon after the calves were born, all the adult cattle were sorted

according to their brands. (A brand is a special mark burned into the fur of the cattle

identifying the ranchero who owned a particular animal. Because ranchos were so

large, and there were few fences in the range land, cattle from different ranchos

were often mixed together while out grazing). Because the young calves followed

their mothers, even the unbranded calves could be kept with the proper herd. Once

the vaqueros separated the cattle, each ranchero had to decide which animals to

keep for breeding and which to kill for their meat, hides and tallow. Those to be

killed were separated from the rest of the herd.

A special type of rodeo, called a mantanza, was held each year to kill the cattle for

their hides and tallow. On the large ranchos, sometimes a thousand head of cattle

were killed at a single mantanza. Often only the hide and tallow were taken while

the rest of the carcass and some of the meat were left to decay on the range. The

mantanza’s demands caused men from many ranchos to work together at round-up

time. It was a time for long hours and hard work; but afterward, there was time to

celebrate with fiestas, barbecues, and dances.

Many of the ranchos in Alta California had originally been Spanish missions. A

mission was land granted by the Spanish government to a religious order. The

purpose was to convert the Native Americans to Catholicism and provide the Spanish

government an opportunity to colonize new territory. By 1836, all of the mission

property in California except the church buildings had been taken from the Catholic

Church. The rancheros found workers more easily after the missions were

secularized, because mission Indians needed new workplaces. Both the Californios

and the Indians worked as vaqueros (cowboys), usually under a foreman called a

mayordomo. The vaqueros roped cattle and tamed horses. Many Indians worked

as house servants, harness makers, tanners and carpenters. Some workers would

stake out cowhides to dry in the sun, while other workers made tallow in large iron

pots. Indian women would grind corn for tortillas and bake bread in an outdoor

oven. Others cooked sewed or cleaned.

Life on the rancho included many different people and activities. Everyone

participated to make the rancho profitable. Vaqueros worked with the cattle to

make hides and tallow that would be sold and then made into finished products.

Others worked to support the people on the rancho by making food, clothes,

cleaning, cooking, etc. After the work was done, people on the rancho were able to

celebrate together at meriendas and fiestas, which included music, dancing and

delicious food.

How We Live on the Rancho

Chart

Name:________________________________ Date:_______________________

As you listen to your teacher read the article, fill out the chart below. You should just

write down brief notes or words to help you remember what your teacher is reading.

CATEGORY LIFE ON THE RANCHO

RANCHO ECONOMIC CYCLE

CLOTHING

EDUCATION

ENTERTAIMENT/CUSTOMS

JOBS (ROLES) ON THE

RANCHO

FOOD

CATTLE PRODUCTS

Lesson Plan:

Brand Recognition Designing and recognizing a cattle brand

Overview:

Cattle brands were an important means of identifying which ranch owned which livestock, be it a cow or a horse. Because cattle roamed freely across the land, the brand helped everyone know which animals belonged to which ranch. A rich symbolic language developed in brand symbols. Brands are still used today—both on livestock and on all of the products which surround us daily. Students will be familiar with hundreds of brands from the Golden Arches to the Nike Swoosh to their favorite sports teams to Mickey Mouse. All of these are instantly recognizable to us—as were the brands on cattle on the range land of Alta California. In this lesson plan, students will create a recognizable, unique brand for their imaginary rancho. They will learn some of the symbols of brand language and write a description of their imaginary rancho, including name, its natural features and an explanation of what their cattle brand symbolizes. This activity is suitable for a variety of age groups, and for older students, a lively discussion could be sparked about advertising, branding and the messages these symbols send to us consciously and otherwise.

Learning Objectives: Students will:

Learn about the importance of branding in ranch lands to identify livestock, ranchos and their owners

Learn some of the symbolism involved in brands

Design their own brands to represent their imaginary ranchos

Be able to articulate the logic behind their designs, based upon the characteristics they include in their design, and their written description of their imaginary rancho.

Common Core Standards: Anchor Standards Writing: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.W.2, CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.W.3, CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.W.4 Anchor Standards, Reading: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.1, CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.4

Oregon State Arts Standards: AR.03.CP.01, AR.03.CP.03, AR.03.AC.01, AR.03.HC.01, AR.05.CP.01, AR.05.CP.02, AR.05.CP.03, AR.05.HC.03

Materials:

Per Student:

Copy of article Cattle Brands

Cord, thick string or yarn

Glue and containers with wide diameter for dipping the cord into (dish, cup, etc.)

Tempera paint

Cardboard

Pencil/pen

Paper (both to print their brand on and to write about their brand and their rancho)

scissors Per Group/Class:

Prep for Teachers:

Assemble materials

Read background article

If desired, set up a station for creating the cattle brands. METHOD FOR MAKING “CATTLE BRANDS:” Students should spend some time thinking about and designing a brand based on the characteristics of their imaginary rancho, or the message they would like to convey about it. After the design has been established with pencil and paper, the design can be recreated to make a stamp by gluing heavy cord in the correct shape to a piece of cardboard. Once the glue has dried, the stamps can be dipped in tempura paint and stamped onto paper.

Introductory Activity:

Ask students to recall all of the brand names they recall—things like Nike, Target, McDonalds, Adidas, sports teams, etc.

Now ask them what their logos are. They should all have a pretty good idea!

Explain that logos and brands are very old—going back to ancient Greece and before! Brands provide a convenient way of identifying ownership.

Remind students that Almaviva in Portland Opera To Go’s version of The Barber of Seville was a wealthy ranchero, who owned many thousands of cattle, all of which would range freely over the land surrounding his rancho. Other rancheros were also

grazing their cattle on the same land. How could Almaviva tell his cattle from the other rancheros’ cattle? Cattle brands.

Explain to students that cattle brands are special marks unique to each cattle owner, and the marks have to follow special rules and be on file with the government. This was true in back in the 1830s and it is true today. Ranchers here in Oregon still have to brand their free-ranging cattle to identify them for sale.

Tell the students that today, they will get to learn a little bit about the language of cattle brands, and create their own unique brand for their imaginary rancho.

Learning Activities:

Distribute copies of Cattle Brands article

Either read the article together as a class, or allow the students time to read the article on their own.

Explore the pictures of different brands in the article, and answer any questions about the symbols used.

If your students have done the Mark Your Territory diseño lesson plan, then they have already imagined their rancho, its natural surroundings and named it, in which case they should move on to designing the cattle brand for their rancho, incorporating the symbology they have just learned, as well as specific features of their individual ranchos.

If they have NOT done the Mark Your Territory lesson plan, have students spend a few moments considering an imaginary rancho that belongs to them. Have them jot down its identifying natural features, give it a name, etc. Then, based on that, have them design their cattle brand.

After students have designed their brands, either distribute materials to make their brands into stamps, or have them go to a designated station to create their stamps following this method:

METHOD FOR MAKING “CATTLE BRANDS:” Students should spend some time thinking about and designing a brand based on the characteristics of their imaginary rancho, or the message they would like to convey about it. After the design has been established with pencil and paper, the design can be recreated to make a stamp by gluing heavy cord in the correct shape to a piece of cardboard. Once the glue has dried, the stamps can be dipped in tempura paint and stamped onto paper.

Culminating Activity:

Have students write a descriptive narrative which includes the name of their rancho, a description of their rancho’s natural features, and a picture of their cattle brand, including how it would be spoken out loud, and explain how their brand relates to their rancho. Remind students to use correct syntax.

Post cattle brands and narratives so that students may share their work with one another.

Cattle Brands In Alta California, under

Mexican law (and later under

U.S. law too), all rancheros

needed a brand, or identifying

mark, for their cattle and

horses. Because the cattle

roamed freely across the land,

the brand helped everyone to

know which animals belonged

to which ranch. The brand, an

iron rod with a design at one

end, was recorded and registered with the government. The branding irons were

made by a blacksmith who heated the iron in a forge until it became red hot and

pliable. The blacksmith would then bend the iron into the shape of the brand.

Branding irons usually had very long handles so that the vaqueros would not burn

their hands when they heated the irons in the fire and so they could keep their

distance from the flaying legs of a captured calf. The brand was burned into the

hair located on the animal’s hip. Brands were uniquely designed by each ranchero

for his herd and this brand design was recorded and registered with the

government.

Cattle brands aren’t just logos like the Nike “swoosh” or the McDonald’s arches—

although to ranchers and auctioneers, they may be just as identifiable. Cattle

brands have a language that is highly organized and follows rules enforced by the

government, so that everyone is on the same page. Most of the time, brands are

made up of a series of letters or numbers, sometimes with a simple shape, like a

circle, square, heart or star. The letters and numbers may appear in many

different positions: upright, on their sides, or upside down. They may be inter-

locking, or they may have additional marks added to them. Below are some

examples:

All of these are A’s, but each has a special characteristic that helps to make it

unique. Any letter or number can have these symbols or positions added to make

them “crazy,” “flying,” “lazy,” “walking,” etc.

Sometimes, rancheros might connect the symbols in their brand to make a design.

These designs are called “connected.” Here are some examples:

‘

All of these symbols became very important at round-up time. When the cattle

were grazed, cows from many different ranchos might feed on the same land.

When they were rounded up, they had to be identified and separated into the

proper herds so that each ranchero could decide what he wanted to do with them

next. As the cattle were driven into a corral, a vaquero would call out the brand

on the cow’s hip, “Lazy A circle!” or “Flying Double J”.

In choosing their brand, a ranchero had an opportunity, not only to identify his

livestock, but also let others know a little something about his rancho. He might

decide to use the first letter of his last name as part of his brand, but he might also

have very fast horses, and add the wings to make his initial “flying.” Or he might

have a line of trees behind his ranch house and include a half circle in his brand.

Anything was possible, and brands wound up being little stories wrapped up in a

symbol. Here are some more examples of brands:

Lesson Plans:

Mathematics Mathmusician Addition & Subtraction Mathmusician

Fractions Technical Director

Lesson Plan:

Mathmusician! Adding & Subtracting with Music!

Overview: Number sense can be a problem for many students, and many students may need to practice some addition and subtraction facts in a more “interesting” way. Kinetic and aural learners may have difficulty internalizing numbers and paper and pencil algorithms. Music is a great way to involve these learners! This lesson provides an opportunity to use musical notation to illustrate basic math in a visual, kinetic and aural way by creating a rhythm symphony in your classroom. This lesson plan uses basic musical notation (whole note, dotted half note, half note and quarter note) to allow younger students to practice basic addition and subtraction.

Learning Objectives:

Students will:

Learn the most basic musical notations for Common Time (4/4 Time): whole note, dotted half note, half note and quarter note.

Understand the relationship between musical notation and basic addition and subtraction.

Read simple music notation to create a rhythm symphony.

Solve simple math problems using musical notation.

Common Core Standards CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.K.CC.A.3, CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.1.NBT.C.4, CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.2.NBT.B.5, CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.2.NBT.B.7, CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.2.OA.B.2, CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.3.NBT.A.2

Materials Per Student:

Mathmusician worksheet in this packet

Per Group/Class

Basic Note values chart

Basic Mathmusician Rhythm Symphony

Overhead projector/whiteboard/blackboard, or something similar.

Prep for Teachers If you aren’t a musician, or are unfamiliar with musical notation, review the note values chart. Practice clapping the rhythms.

A whole note, worth 4 beats, would be: clap, 2, 3, 4, with the numbers spoken aloud (alternatively, tapping the foot, clap, tap, tap, tap)

A dotted half note, worth three beats, would be: clap, tap, tap.

A half note, worth two beats, would be: clap, tap

A quarter note worth 1 beat, would be: clap.

All music is divided into measures and all music has a fraction (called a time signature) at the beginning. The fraction’s denominator tells you what note value gets the beat, and the numerator tells you how many beats there are in the measure. So, in 4/4 time, there are 4 beats in the measure and the quarter note gets the beat.

Introductory Activity:

Ask students how they think that musicians know what notes to sing and how long to sing them.

Explain that in music, rhythm is the most important component and that music creates rhythms by dividing measures into beats. In Common Time, every measure has to have four beats.

Share the Basic Note Chart with the class. This may be review for some. That is okay—they will help the rest along. Discuss the values of the notes. To help students “hear” the value of the notes, tap your foot on the floor: tap, tap, tap, tap (each tap is a quarter note). Have students join you in the tapping. Then…

Learning Activities: Activity 1:

Introduce the whole note. A whole note is an empty oval and represents the whole measure. Introduce the concept of the whole note by clapping its value. Clap once for each 4-beat measure you tap: clap, tap, tap, tap. As you clap, hum the note and hold it over all four beats (hum-mm-mm-mm). Have students clap, tap, and hum with you. A whole note equals 4 beats.

Introduce the dotted half note. The dotted half note is an empty oval with a vertical line attached to it, followed by a dot. Draw your students a dotted half note and write the number 3 next to it. Let your students hear a dotted half note by clapping (clap, tap, tap, clap, tap, tap) and humming (hum-mm-mm, hum-mm-mm), to represent the dotted half note for your students as you clap-tap the value. Have students clap, tap and hum with you.

Introduce the half note. The half note is an empty oval with a vertical line attached to it. Draw your students a half note, and write the number 2 next to it. Let your students hear a half note by clapping (clap, tap, clap, tap) and humming (hum-mm, hum-mm) to represent the half note for students as you clap-tap. Have students clap, tap, and hum with you.

Introduce the quarter note. The quarter note looks like a half note, but the oval is filled in with solid black. Draw a quarter note for students, and write the fraction 1/4 next to it. Clap (clap, clap, clap, clap) to represent the quarter note as you tap your foot to a four-beat measure. Have students clap and tap with you.

Introduce the time signature. A time signature is a fraction at the beginning of every piece of music. The top number (numerator) of the fraction, tells you how many beats are in the measure. The bottom number (denominator) tells you what note value gets the beat.

Activity 2:

Now play a little game with your students, tapping random rhythms, and having your students tell you what they think you are clapping.

Activity 3:

Now is a great time to review the idea that each note value represents a number: o Every measure in 4/4 or Common Time gets 4 beats. A whole note is held

for the entire four beats. o That same 4/4 measure might include two half notes, each of which is held

for two beats, so two half notes are needed to add up to the 4 beats that are needed in the measure: 2 + 2 = 4

o A measure might also include four quarter notes, each of which represent 1 beat. 4 quarter notes are needed to fill the 4 beats in one measure.

o Or a measure might include a dotted half note and a quarter note, because the dotted half note is worth 3 beats, so it needs another beat to add up to 4….what note value equals 1? That’s right! A quarter note. 3 + 1 = 4

o A measure may include any combination of the notes above, as long as they all add up to one four beat measure.

Activity 4:

Divide the class into 2 groups.

Have the first group clap out quarter notes (clap, clap, clap, clap)

Practice that with them for a bit

Have the second group clap out half note (clap-tap, clap-tap, clap-tap, clap-tap)—give them a chance to practice.

Now put the two together.

Culminating Activity:

Now it is time for our rhythm symphony! Create simple measures for four groups to clap. Students should clap them and repeat them, until you cut them off.

If you would like your students to practice some adding and subtracting, they can do the accompanying Mathmusician Addition & Subtraction Work Sheet.

David Saffert, POGO pianist, leading a Rhythm Symphony

Basic Note Values Chart

Whole Note

= 4 beats

Dotted half note

= 3 beats

Half note

= 2 beats

Quarter note

= 1 beat

Name:____________________________________________ Date:_______________________________

Mathmusician Addition & Subtraction

Using what you now know about note value, solve the following problems. Use both a note and a number in your answer.

Example:

- = or 2

+ = 1.

- = 2.

+ = 3.

+ = 4.

- = 5.

- = 6.

Basic Notes Rhythm Symphony

Part 1

(repeat until teacher cuts you off)

4

4

Basic Notes Rhythm Symphony

Part 2

(repeat until teacher cuts you off)

4

4

Basic Notes Rhythm Symphony

Part 3

(repeat until teacher cuts you off)

4

4

Basic Notes Rhythm Symphony

Part 4

(repeat until teacher cuts you off)

4

4

Lesson Plan:

Mathmusician! Fractions!

Overview: Fractions are a problem for many students. They can be hard for kinetic and aural learners to internalize. Music is a great way to involve these learners! This lesson provides an opportunity to use musical notation to illustrate fractions in a visual, kinetic and aural way by creating a rhythm symphony in your classroom. For older students studying fractions, there is also an accompanying fraction/music work sheet.

Learning Objectives: Students will:

Learn the most basic musical notations for Common Time (4/4 Time): whole note, half note, quarter note, eighth note, sixteenth note.

Understand the relationship between musical notation and fractions.

Read simple music notation to create a rhythm symphony.

Solve fraction problems using musical notation.

Common Core Standards CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.3.NF.A.1, CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.3.NF.A.3.B, CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.3.NF.A.3.C, CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.4.NF.B.3.A, CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.4.NF.B.3.C

Materials Per Student:

Mathmusician worksheet in this packet (older students) Per Group/Class

Note values chart

Mathmusician Rhythm Symphony

Overhead projector/whiteboard/blackboard, or something similar.

Prep for Teachers If you aren’t a musician, or are unfamiliar with musical notation, review the note values chart. Practice clapping the rhythms.

A whole note, worth 4 beats, would be: clap, 2, 3, 4, with the numbers spoken aloud (alternatively, tapping the foot, clap, tap, tap, tap)

A half note, worth two beats, would be: clap, tap.

A quarter note worth 1 beat, would be: clap.

An eighth note, worth half a beat, is: clap-clap (two eighth claps are one beat)

A sixteenth note, worth a quarter of a beat, is: clap-clap-clap-clap (four 16th note claps are one beat)

All music is divided into measures and all music has a fraction (called a time signature) at the beginning. The fractions denominator tells you what note value gets the beat, and the numerator tells you how many beats there are in the measure. So, in 4/4 time, there are 4 beats in the measure and the quarter note gets the beat.

Introductory Activity:

Ask students how they think that musicians know what notes to sing and how long to sing them.

Explain that in music, rhythm is the most important component and that music creates rhythms by dividing measures into beats—just like fractions.

Share the note chart with the class. This may be review for some. That is okay—they will help the rest along. Discuss the values of the notes. To help students “hear” the value of the notes, tap your foot on the floor: tap, tap, tap, tap (each tap is a quarter note). Have students join you in the tapping. Then…

Learning Activities: Activity 1:

Introduce the whole note. A whole note is an empty oval and represents the whole measure. Introduce the concept of the whole note by clapping its value. Clap once for each 4-beat measure you tap: clap, tap, tap, tap. As you clap, hum the note and hold it over all four beats (hum-mm-mm-mm). Have students clap, tap, and hum with you.

Introduce the half note. The half note is an empty oval with a vertical line attached to it. Draw your students a half note, and write the fraction ½ next to it. Let your students hear a half note by clapping (clap, tap, clap, tap) and humming (hum-mm, hum-mm) to represent the half note for students as you tap your foot to the four beats of the measure. Have students clap, tap, and hum with you.

Introduce the quarter note. The quarter note looks like a half note, but the oval is filled in with solid black. Draw a quarter note for students, and write the fraction 1/4 next to it. Clap (clap, clap, clap, clap) to represent the quarter note as you tap your foot to a four-beat measure. Have students clap and tap with you.

Introduce the eighth note. The eight note looks like a quarter note, except it has a flag at the end of the vertical line. Draw an eighth note for students, and write the fraction 1/8 next to it. Clap twice for each beat (clap-clap, clap-clap, clap-clap, clap-clap) to represent the eighth note to students as you tap your foot to the four-beat measure. Have students clap and tap with you.

Introduce the sixteenth note. The sixteenth note looks like a quarter note with another flag attached under the first. Draw the sixteenth note for the students and write the fraction 1/16 next to it. Clap four times for each beat (clap-clap-clap-clap, clap-clap-clap-clap)

Introduce the time signature. A time signature is a fraction at the beginning of every piece of music. The top number (numerator) of the fraction, tells you how many beats are in the measure. The bottom number (denominator) tells you what note value gets the beat.

Activity 2:

Now play a little game with your students, tapping random rhythms, and having your students tell you what they think you are clapping.

Activity 3:

Now is a great time to review the idea that each note value represents a fraction: o A four beat measure represents one whole. A whole note is held for the

entire four beats. o That same whole measure might include two half notes, each of which is

held for two beats and represents ½ of the measure. ½ note + ½ note = 1 whole note or measure.

o A measure might also include four quarter notes, each of which represent ¼ of the measure. ¼ + ¼ + ¼ + ¼ = one whole measure.

o Or a measure might include eight eighth notes, each of which represents 1/8 of a measure. Etc…..

o A measure may include any combination of the notes above, as long as they all add up to one four beat measure. So, you might have one half note + two quarter notes in a measure: ½ + ¼ + ¼ = one whole measure.

Activity 4:

Divide the class into 2 groups.

Have the first group clap out quarter notes (clap, clap, clap, clap)

Practice that with them for a bit

Have the second group clap out eighth notes (clap-clap, clap-clap, clap-clap, clap-clap)—give them a chance to practice.

Now put the two together.

Culminating Activity:

Now it is time for our rhythm symphony! Create simple measures for four groups to clap. Students should clap them and repeat them, until you cut them off.

Older students, familiar with adding fractions, can fill out the accompanying worksheet.

Mathmusician Worksheet Answer Key: 1. 11/8 or 1 3/8 2. 3/16 3. ¼ 4. 7/8 5. 3/8 6. 15/16 7. ¾ 8.

3/4

Fractions of the Measure:

Note Values Chart

Whole Note = 1 whole measure

Half Note = 1

2

of a measure.

Sixteenth Note = 1

16

of a measure

Quarter Note = 1

4

of a measure

Eighth Note = 1

8

of a measure

=

=

=

=

=

1 measure

Name:____________________________________________ Date:_______________________________

Mathmusician: Fractions!

Remember: In this exercise, each whole note equals 1 (because a one whole

note equals one measure). Each half note equals 1

2. Each quarter note equals

1

4 . Each eighth note equals

1

8 . Each sixteenth note equals

1

16 .

Using what you now know about what fraction of a musical measure each note is, solve the following: Example:

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

+ + = 5/8

=

+ + =

- =

+ + +

- =

+ - =

- =

- - =

+ + =

Rhythm Symphony

Part 1

4

4

(repeat until teacher cuts you off)

Rhythm Symphony

Part 2

(repeat until teacher cuts you off)

4

4

Rhythm Symphony

Part 3

(repeat until teacher cuts you off)

4

4

Rhythm Symphony

Part 4

4

4

(repeat until teacher cuts you off)

Lesson Plan:

Technical Director! Calculating cost and creating a “set”

Overview:

This lesson provides an opportunity for students to experience some of the problems that a Technical Director in an opera company encounters when mounting a new production. In experiencing the elements that go into realizing a set designer’s vision, students will apply mathematical skills in a theoretical and practical way by calculating the cost and creating a free-standing structure. Thanks to Laura Baldasano, formerly of Arizona Opera, for sharing this idea. This lesson plan could be adapted for a variety of ages.

Learning Objectives:

Students will: Demonstrate basic construction skills by building a free-standing structure, using

predetermined materials. Compute the cost of the structure and identify problems, successes, and revisions by

group discussion and answering questions on the work sheet.

Common Core Standards

CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.4.OA.A.2, CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.4.MD.A.2, CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.5.NBT.B.5, CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.5.NBT.B.7

Materials:

Per Group/Class:

Approximately 20 plastic drinking straws Approximately 20 straight pins (caution students about safety as necessary) 10 small paper clips 1 roll of masking tape 1 yard/meter measuring stick 1 “Production Team Worksheet” 1 pencil or pen

1 calculator (optional) Area to work in small groups

Prep for Teachers:

Collect materials Copy 1 “Production Team Worksheet” for each group Download some production shots of sets or set design renderings from the web Create some learning zones, where students have floor space to work

Introductory Activity:

After watching Portland Opera To Go’s production of The Barber of Seville, ask the students what they think went into creating the show. Ask them to brainstorm the different elements of the production. (performers, rehearsals, costumes, sets, etc.)

Show students the production shots and set renderings you found. Explain that the opera production team faces many challenges when creating sets, props and costumes. Sometimes the build their own sets, and sometimes they rent them from other companies. When they rent productions, materials arrive in several semi-trucks, and the technical director needs to figure out how to put it all together. When they build their own sets, carpenters build the production according to the set designer’s plans. Materials and labor are costly, so the production team needs to be incredibly efficient with materials to stay within budget.

Explain that today, they will get to be the production team and figure out how to build a free-standing structure (defined as a building or structure that stands on its own and is not attached to any other structure) and calculate its cost.

Learning Activities:

Divide students in to groups of 5-6 Give each group a learning zone (cleared floor area) and their materials Distribute worksheets Each group should assign (or be assigned) the following roles: spokesperson,

accountant, recorder, timekeeper (jobs may be combined) Explain the objective (to build the tallest free-standing structure for the least cost),

model the materials and how they might be used (without actually building a structure!) and introduce the Production Team Worksheet.

Groups should take 3-4 minutes to brainstorm designs for their structure. Building time should last 30-45 minutes, during which time, the accountant should keep a tally of material costs.

Upon completion of the structure, the group should record their final structure height and the accountant should tally the final cost.

Give students 5-10 minutes to discuss the questions. Recorder will transcribe group’s responses to the worksheet.

Spokesperson for each group will then share group’s building and worksheet answers with the rest of the class. Special emphasis should be placed on questions 2 and 4 on the worksheet.

Culminating Activity:

Bring the class back together and ask them if there were any problems common to all the groups.

Ask them how the process might change if they had to start with a budget first and build a structure based on the budget rather than the other way around. How would they alter their designs? What kinds of discussions might have to take place between a company, scene designer and director to get to an affordable product?

Production team worksheet

You are now the production team for an opera. Your assignment is to build the tallest free standing structure you can, for the least amount of money. You may use only the specified materials. To answer the questions, you may use another piece of paper.

Cost of materials:

Straws $1.00 each Paper clips $0.20 each Straight pins $0.10 each Masking tape $0.20 per inch

Cost Calculations: Pin(s) X $0.10 =

Paper clip(s) X $0.20 =

Inch(es) of tape X $0.20 =

Straw(s) X $1.00 =

Height of structure: ______________________inches Total cost of structure: $_____________________ Questions:

1. What was the most difficult part of building the free standing structure?

2. What problems, if any, did you have to solve?

3. What changes, if any, did you make after beginning

construction? 4. If you could do it again, what changes, if any, would you make?