Opera: Mission Failed.

Game over

Try again

Oh, really ?

The opera, either you have family who take you there, or you don’t go there.
I have in my boxes dozens and dozens of testimonies from young people, whom I had asked to find me two words and two images to express what they thought of the Opera.
And they all answered the same thing:

Opera is for the old people
Opera is for the rich.

If we leave it at that, then it’s true: the Opera mission has failed. The game is over. The artists go home.
And everyone ends up in the cemetery.

Or we can try again.

It is therefore a question of changing the focus and embarking on this absolutely immense challenge: to make the Opera popular again.

As our ministers would say, there is no magic solution.
I don’t have any sparkling powder to throw at the young heads that would drive them crazy for the love of the Opera.

It is a long-term task, which must be repeated without despair.
On the other hand, the solutions we have tested here in our theatre work very well and are simple:

What works best is the afternoon of meeting with the opera performers.
The Opera Company 2001, for example, knows how to play the game perfectly: young people go on stage, dance, try to sing (a little), and are even invited to participate in the figuration.
On the evening of the performance, they were almost all there, delighted and delighted.

The practice of lyrical singing is also a workshop that amazes us:

We sing, we look for the A.
We learn the air column
We wonder how all this works.
We’re testing but yes, it works: we can turn up the volume without
break his voice
And we forget the ‘brake’: we no longer wonder if we sing right or wrong, we wonder how to push the volume.
And this is the ultimate trick of all these workshops.

And above all, what do these young people do when the artists tell them, at the end: tonight, we will play for you?
They are moved, of course.

And above all, in this kind of game, you shouldn’t only address young people: invite parents and families. So that at home, the sacred music virus can find its place.

But I tell you: when you succeed in the challenge of organizing the meeting between opera singers and young people, the challenge succeeds 100%.

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Featured Image : Atelier Lyrique de l‘Opera de Montréal (2016)