Learning Objectives

• Describe how opera combines music, words, theater, and technology to tell a story
• Understand how big, exciting productions like opera performances require the help of many people working together, or collaborating, and describe some of the roles and jobs that people have in opera
• Recognize ways in which art created long ago might still help us think about feelings and relationships we have today

Education Standards Alignment

• Re7: Perceive and analyze artistic work
• Re8: Interpret intent and meaning in artistic work
• Cn11: Relate artistic ideas and works with societal, cultural, and historical context to deepen understanding

• CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.3
• CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.6
• CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.SL.3

(Social-Emotional Learning)

• Self-Awareness
  • Linking feelings, values, and thoughts
  • Developing interests and a sense of purpose
• Relationship Skills
  • Practicing teamwork and collaborative problem-solving

The ensemble from the WNO’s La bohème. Photo by Scott Suchman.

What to Expect

Performance

• This performance is approximately 60 minutes.
• As a “Look-In,” this event includes excerpts from a full opera production as well as information about opera and how it is made. Audiences will hear explanations of what opera is and how companies like the Washington National Opera make big shows like La bohème in between short segments of the full opera.

Performers

• The main characters in the opera and their voice types are: Rodolfo, a poet (tenor); Marcello, a painter (baritone); Schaunard, a musician (baritone); Colline, a philosopher (bass); Mimi, a seamstress (soprano); and Musetta, a singer (soprano).
• Host Renea Brown will guide audiences through segments about how operas are made in between seeing parts of the performance.

Sound

• Operatic singing is very dramatic. Sometimes, the performers may sing louder to show emotions such as sadness, anger, or fear.

Lighting

• Lighting effects are used throughout the show on stage to help set the mood of the scene.
• During the performance, different lighting techniques will be explained and demonstrated.

Visuals

• The excerpts of La bohème are performed in Italian, the language of the original opera. To help understand what is happening, the WNO will show supertitles above the stage that have the English translation of what the singers are saying.

Audience Interaction

• Renea will ask a few questions from the stage that the audience can answer all together. Some of the answers to the questions will appear on the large supertitle screen that hangs above the stage.
• Renea may ask for a volunteer to come to the orchestra pit to conduct. You can raise your hand to volunteer if you want to.

What to Bring

• Please bring any tools that will help make the experience comfortable for you! Some suggestions are: noise-canceling headphones, sunglasses or visors, fidgets, and communication devices.

Resources

• Visit the Kennedy Center Opera House webpage to learn more about the theater where you’ll see the performance. You can also check out a 360-degree view and seating chart of the space!

Look and Listen for

• All the people on and off the stage. How many people are working together to make this opera happen? As a look-in, this program goes behind the scenes of what it takes to produce an opera performance with host Renea Brown highlighting details along the way. How many people work together to make this opera happen?
• The way that the performers act like everyday people. For a long time, operas were mostly about kings and queens or gods and goddesses. However, when La bohème was first performed in 1896, it was part of a new style called “verismo” that told the stories of everyday people. Why do you think it might be important to make art about regular people?
• The singers’ unique voices. Opera singers spend years learning how to sing in a way that can be heard over a big orchestra in a huge concert hall—and they do it all without microphones! In addition, opera singers learn to sing in many languages. It takes a lot of work and dedication to be an opera singer, but they get to sing beautiful music and tell epic stories. Opera singers have different voice types, too: singers who usually sing high are called sopranos and tenors; singers who sing low are called mezzo-sopranos, baritones, and basses.
• The way that the music helps to tell the story. Even if we don’t understand the words, the music can give clues about how the characters feel. See if you can notice how the music helps show when the characters are worried, happy, or falling in love. You might even notice times when the music helps show that a character feels sick, or when a character is showing off to try to get someone’s attention.

Think About

Opera: The Ultimate Collaboration

Opera uses so many things to tell a story: words, music, sets, costumes, lighting, and more. Because of this, many people need to work together, or collaborate, to make it happen! Some of the people who collaborate to make an opera include:

• The composer, who writes the music
• The librettist, who writes the words
• The singers, who play the characters
• The orchestra, which plays music
• The conductor, who leads the orchestra and keeps everyone together
• The costume designer, who decides what the characters wear
• The set designer, who decides how the stage looks to show where the opera happens
• The lighting designer, who uses lights to make sure everyone can be seen and to help show the mood
• The stage manager, who makes sure everyone is where they are supposed to be and that everything goes smoothly
• The stagehands and technicians, who move the set, work the lights, and make sure everything else happens the way it should
• The hair and makeup designers, who make everyone look fabulous
• The director, who leads everyone to create a beautiful piece together

Plus, there are tons of people who help build the sets, make the costumes, help out backstage, lead rehearsals, sell tickets, help audience members, and more!

Which of these roles do you think would be the most fun for you? What would be the hardest? What challenges do you think they might face? What do you think opera company members need to do to be able to work well together? What things do you do when you need to work with others to make something big and exciting happen?

Opera Synopsis

The Look-In will feature excerpts, or short sections, from the first half of La bohème. To preview what happens in the whole opera, take a look at this or this .

Stage Magic

Take a look at the Kennedy Center’s What I Do series to learn about the people who help design sets, lighting, and more to bring shows to life.

Setting the Scene

Watch as the stage in the Kennedy Center’s Opera House becomes so many different locations in this of the Washington National Opera’s amazing technical crew builds multiple sets. You can see multiple people working together to bring exciting creative ideas to life!

The Weird & Wonderful World of Opera

Explore what opera is, its history, and all the people who make it happen in this series of four short, fun videos.

Sing!

Operas are a lot like plays and musicals, where people play characters on stage. However, in opera, the actors tend to sing everything. They may have big, solo moments called arias in which they explore a specific feeling; or romantic duets, like Mimi and Rodolfo have in La bohème, when they meet and immediately really like each other. But they will also sing regular conversations. With a partner or two, think of something you can all talk about that makes you feel strong feelings, like your favorite and least favorite foods. Instead of talking about them, try to sing your conversation. You can make up any notes you like! Think about how you might sing about a food that is delicious, and how you might sing differently about food you wish you didn’t have to eat. Could an audience tell how you were feeling even if they didn’t understand your words? What could you do with your singing to help them understand how your feel?

Design!

Think about how costume designers, set designers, lighting designers, and others use their skills to help tell the story. Try your hand at being a costume designer. Choose a character from the opera or from any story that you like. Using clothes from your own closet, how would you dress someone as this character? What would help an audience see that they are outgoing or shy, rich or poor, old or young? What might give the audience a clue about their job or what they love doing? You could also draw a picture of how the character might dress; this is called a costume sketch. Share your costume ideas with someone else and explain how your choices help show the character.

About Your Host

Renea S. Brown is a classical actor currently in the D.C. area. Recent credits include Viola in Our Verse in time to Come and Helena in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (both at Folger Shakespeare Theatre), and Dede in Nollywood Dreams at Roundhouse Theatre. Other credits include The Wolves at McCarter Theatre; Change Agent at Arena Stage; The Tempest and Macbeth at Shakespeare Theatre Company; Love Factually at the Kennedy Center; Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth at Chesapeake Shakespeare Theatre Co.; and Macbeth and Cymbeline at Theatre Prometheus. Regional credits include The Wolves at McCarter Theatre; Othello, Sense and Sensibility, and Twelfth Night at Island Shakespeare Festival (first Black woman to perform); Wedding Band and The Little Princess at Quintessence Theatre; and Much Ado About Nothing, A King and No King, and A Chaste Maid in Cheapside at American Shakespeare Center. She has a MFA from the Academy of Classical Acting. TikTok/Instagram: @Thedarklady

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Generous support for educational programs at the Kennedy Center is provided by the U.S. Department of Education.

Gifts and grants to educational programs at the Kennedy Center are provided by The Paul M. Angell Family Foundation; Bank of America; Capital One; The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation; Carnegie Corporation of New York; The Ednah Root Foundation; Harman Family Foundation; William R. Kenan, Jr. Charitable Trust; the Kimsey Endowment; The Kiplinger Foundation; Laird Norton Family Foundation; Lois and Richard England Family Foundation; Dr. Gary Mather and Ms. Christina Co Mather; The Markow Totevy Foundation; Dr. Gerald and Paula McNichols Foundation; The Morningstar Foundation; Myra and Leura Younker Endowment Fund; The Irene Pollin Audience Development and Community Engagement Initiatives;

Prince Charitable Trusts; Dr. Deborah Rose and Dr. Jan A. J. Stolwijk; Rosemary Kennedy Education Fund; The Embassy of the United Arab Emirates; The Victory Foundation; The Volgenau Foundation; Volkswagen Group of America; Jackie Washington; GRoW @ Annenberg and Gregory Annenberg Weingarten and Family; Wells Fargo; and generous contributors to the Abe Fortas Memorial Fund and by a major gift to the fund from the late Carolyn E. Agger, widow of Abe Fortas. Additional support is provided by the National Committee for the Performing Arts..

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