MUSIC! WORDS! OPERA!
What is it?
MUSIC! WORDS! OPERA! (M!W!O!) is a three-level textbook series designed for children in grades K-12. It was written by a team of authors, including classroom and music teachers, curriculum specialists, composers and opera professionals. Through the study of opera and music-theater masterpieces, this multi-disciplinary curriculum presents the conventions of opera and allows students to compose and perform original music-theater works.
What is in the textbooks?
M!W!O! offers two approaches to learning —
Listen and Discover and
Create and Produce.
Listen and Discover introduces students to the operatic art form and explores how and why specific operas were written. With
Create and Produce, students produce their own original opera. Levels I and II each include "What to Listen For" CDs with music excerpts that accompany the lesson plans, a Teacher’s Manual and Student Studybooks. Level III includes a Teacher’s Manual and complete recordings of the play
Othello and the opera
Otello.
For more detailed information about the materials, visit our
publications page.
Why opera?
As the national service organization for the field of opera, OPERA America is dedicated to sharing information and resources about opera, to extending its rich traditions, to embracing new works and to advocating for new expressions of the art form. M!W!O! was developed to reflect the highly interdisciplinary nature of opera and to promote the art form as an excellent tool to aid students and teachers in their explorations of history, language, literature and music. M!W!O! places students at the center of their learning as they work in partnership with teachers and artists to find new creative means of self-expression through the study of opera.
Latest news
Check back in early 2009 for dates of teacher training workshops for summer 2009.
For more information about MUSIC! WORDS! OPERA!, please contact
Education@operaamerica.org.