# Introducing opera to inner city children



## Templeton (Dec 20, 2014)

Norman Lebrecht has just highlighted a BBC programme, which took a group of South London children and introduced them to opera. The outcome is surprising and moving. For once, a worthwhile TV programme and I was very impressed by the presenter and the manner in which he conveyed his ideas and ideals. Here's the link:

http://slippedisc.com/2018/03/what-happens-when-8-hip-hop-kids-are-taken-to-the-opera/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+slippedisc%2FnICW+%28Slipped+Disc%29

The above also provides further links to the actual programme.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

Seems interesting. I'll see if I can find a way to watch it, iPlayer not being available here.

Good to see that the programme maker said: "From the outset, I made it clear that what this film hoped to show was not that they would all convert to opera and classical music - _or even that such an outcome was necessary or desirable_ - but that it would demonstrate that they had the capacity to challenge their own view of themselves in ways they had never imagined possible."

If he had come in with the notion that opera would be "improving" that would be really off-putting for me. That said, I wait with bated breath for the follow-up, in which elderly opera-goers are introduced to grime music!


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## Templeton (Dec 20, 2014)

Hi Nereffid

Here is a link that may work for you:


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

As far as I can see the objectives are about broadening the "social and personal aspirations" of working class people. 

It would have been interesting to take some of the regulars in the Dress Circle and lead them to rap. Covent Garden's expensive, and members of the audience who don't conform to house norms get funny looks in the Crush Bar. 

It looks as though they are about encouraging the working class to take on bourgeois values. There's a fundamentally right wing agenda. The question of state subsidies for Covent Garden is also relevant. 

Interesting they chose Tosca, the shabby little shocker from over a hundred years ago, with a cast of rich people -- opera singers, artists . . . And a moral which says that you must never trust the police. It may have been better to have chosen an opera with more interesting things to say. The Ring for example. Or even Madame Butterfly (at least there there's a feminist agenda to talk about, and an anti American men one) or La Boheme. 

Ofsted thinks that this is not a good school.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

An interesting idea, I guess, but one that does nothing to change the fundamental that opera is an extinct art form. There hasn't been an opera written in 70 years that's in the standard repertory.

As to introducing Covent Garden members to rap, I think it may be more realistic to introduce everyone to music theater, an art form still creating hits, new fans, and one that has a future.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

larold said:


> An interesting idea, I guess, but one that does nothing to change the fundamental that opera is an extinct art form. There hasn't been an opera written in 70 years that's in the standard repertory.
> 
> As to introducing Covent Garden members to rap, I think it may be more realistic to introduce everyone to music theater, an art form still creating hits, new fans, and one that has a future.


Opera still has a future in that the classics will live on forever and will continue to be performed for as long as humanity exists. Just because new "hits" aren't being created, doesn't mean it's dead.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Mandryka said:


> As far as I can see the objectives are about broadening the "social and personal aspirations" of working class people.
> 
> It looks as though they are about encouraging the working class to take on bourgeois values. There's a fundamentally right wing agenda. The question of state subsidies for Covent Garden is also relevant.


Interesting post but is it really about encouraging kids to take on bourgeois values? Couldn't you just as easily say that it is about reclaiming something of real value from the bourgeois types who think they own it? Art doesn't belong to the well-healed: it belongs to us all. And the idea than "great" art is in some way elitist and bourgeois is a con visited upon the working class by those with more power.

Getting rewards out of classical music does take work so some sort of encouragement is needed. And those who are not born into it may need allies to endure the way that some audiences enforce dress and etiquette codes.

I remember decades ago getting a free ticket in the stalls for something at Covent Garden. I am not and have never been posh in any way and the rest of the audience spotted it straight away. Getting to my seat was quite complex and all sorts of people went out of their way to accidentally (as it were) block my path. There were a good few very posh school kids in the audience and they talked and rustled toffee wrappers throughout the performance. But that was OK with the rest of the audience because they were of the right class. I don't suppose it is so bad today.


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

larold said:


> An interesting idea, I guess, but one that does nothing to change the fundamental that opera is an extinct art form. There hasn't been an opera written in 70 years that's in the standard repertory.
> 
> As to introducing Covent Garden members to rap, I think it may be more realistic to introduce everyone to music theater, an art form still creating hits, new fans, and one that has a future.





Captainnumber36 said:


> Opera still has a future in that the classics will live on forever and will continue to be performed for as long as humanity exists. Just because new "hits" aren't being created, doesn't mean it's dead.


I guess we would need to introduce opera to Talk Classical members too!. :lol:


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

Enthusiast said:


> Interesting post but is it really about encouraging kids to take on bourgeois values? .


A ticket to the opera was more affordable in the Soviet Union than a cinema ticket is in in western Europe today.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Enthusiast said:


> I don't suppose it is so bad today.


The old days was different because of the £10 amphitheatre tickets you could get by queuing on the day of the performance -- it became more exclusive after the refurbishment in the 1990s, and more glamorous.


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## mathisdermaler (Mar 29, 2017)

It seems that whenever we try to spread an appreciation of classical music to the general public, we do so by introducing it to the least intelligent people in the poorest areas, as if the peasants of old ever loved Wagner. It seems pointless and only self-aggrandizing. Imperialistic, even... I agree with the poster who said this was incredibly bourgeois.


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

Templeton said:


> Norman Lebrecht


that nasty fellow who writes nasty books is he?


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## BiscuityBoyle (Feb 5, 2018)

mathisdermaler said:


> It seems that whenever we try to spread an appreciation of classical music to the general public, we do so by introducing it to the least intelligent people in the poorest areas, as if the peasants of old ever loved Wagner. It seems pointless and only self-aggrandizing. Imperialistic, even... I agree with the poster who said this was incredibly bourgeois.


This is an incredibly loaded topic. The proselytizers will always be vulnerable to charges of cultural patronage and colonialism. But I believe that if you do it in good faith, and out of genuine love of music and a desire to share it with others, it doesn't have to be that.

One of the key things for me is that you have to allow for a reciprocity of learning: the best hip-hop has incredible beats and cutting edge cut-and-paste techniques, but how many opera lovers are prepared to give it a chance?

The attitude of "the least intelligent people in the poorest areas" is the real problem imho. I've seen students in a First Nations school in Ontario shed tears listening to Brahms's A major intermezzo from opus 118. You never know what an encounter with art might awaken in someone.


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## ludwig ii (Jan 23, 2018)

Interesting concept for me, as I have lived for decades in one of those Midwestern U.S. cities known only somewhat for its rich (by American standards) history and mostly for its present high rates of crime. Business owners have, in recent years, taken to playing classical music outside their establishments to prevent inner-city "children" and the homeless from loitering (and ultimately vandalizing, begging, getting in altercations, and otherwise driving away potential customers)... with great success.


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