While individual classes might leave the school for an activity that enriches students’ learning, like the recent grade 12 biology excursion to a lab at U of T, we regularly take all of our students to attend live performances. We attend live theatre and opera in part because we hope that our students enjoy the experience, but there is considerably more potential benefit to a night (or afternoon!) at the theatre than just pleasure.
Last week, The Abelard School attended The Magic Flute, presented by the Canadian Opera Company. Mozart’s opera tells the story of Tamino’s quest to rescue Pamina, whose hand he has been promised in marriage by the Queen of the Night. The characters struggle with and against the forces of good and evil as they contemplate what it takes to live an honourable life. The opera features deeply-loved music like the Queen of the Night’s “Der Hölle Rache,” and the charming duet between Papageno and Papagena. True to fairy-tale form, everything ends happily.
The opera gave us all lots to talk about in the following days. Among other things, we discussed metatheatrical staging, the history of opera performance in Austria, the difference between historical production practices and staging today, and the (dated!) representation of women in The Magic Flute. Pedagogically, it is important to see live performances because these are all subjects that aren’t as easily accessed in reading a libretto or score alone. A live performance weaves together layers of meaning, where the languages of the stage–lighting, acting, design, writing, and more–are at free play with one another, collectively either reinforcing or asking us to question our initial responses.
There are less tangible but equally valuable reasons for bringing the entire school to the opera. A 2015 study by researchers at the University of Arkansas demonstrated that attending theatre, “increases student tolerance by providing exposure to a broader, more diverse world; and improves the ability of students to recognize what other people are thinking or feeling” (Greene et al). The report compellingly argues that students become better at navigating the world around them for having attended a live performance. Or, as another study more succinctly puts it, participating in theatre “provides an environment […] which support[s] young people in making positive transitions to adulthood” (Hughes 70).
Attending The Magic Flute, then, reflects one of the core philosophies of an education at Abelard. We are committed to helping students discover their own strengths and to developing their morals and values so that they might help make the world a better place by their contribution to it.
Works Cited
Greene, Jay P., Collin Hitt, Anne Kraybill, and Cari A. Bogulski. “Learning from Live Theater: Students realize gains in knowledge, tolerance, and more.” Education Next, Vol. 15, No. 1, Winter 2015. http://educationnext.org/learning-live-theater/.
Hughes, Jenny, and Karen Wilson. “Playing a Part: The Impact of Youth Theatre on Young People’s Personal and Social Development.” Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, Vol. 9, No. 1, 2004, pp. 57-72.
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