Opera for all: Garsington Opera

At this point in the year, Garsington Opera's learning and participation team would usually be going into schools to share a variety of sessions linked to our summer opera programme. When the coronavirus hit, we wanted to ensure that some of the planned work could continue – albeit in a different format. I don't believe that online teaching can ever replace face-to-face contact, but the resources we have created have been taken up by thousands of families – far beyond our usual catchment area in Buckinghamshire.

Our weekly 25-minute long workshop, ‘Monday Motivation’, streams live on Facebook and Youtube every Monday at 10am and then is available on demand thereafter. There is also a ‘Design Challenge’ – a craft activity connected to opera and stage work – which goes out on Thursdays at 9am (with the resources circulated the previous day so that teachers can plan ahead). These are collaborative and unedited, organised via Zoom.

A team of three experienced practitioners – myself, composer Hannah Conway and choreographer Natasha Khamjani – present in a typical workshop format, including a physical activity and a song that everyone can join in with. Some sessions have included a simplified aria, arranged in a key that suits everyone. The songs are ‘taught’ as they would be in a live workshop – working to the short time-frame that this medium demands, and always remembering that homes are inter-generational spaces. We introduce a special guest – these have included singers who are the stars of our cancelled season and past Garsington seasons – Natalya Romaniw (pictured, above, top right), Roderick Williams and Joshua Bloom or an instrumentalist – for instance trumpeter Adam West from the Philharmonia (our resident orchestra). It's a little like ‘a digital magazine’ comprising different sections: a dance warmup, some storytelling, learning a song, imagining the context of the story through dramatic interpretation, learning more about opera as a profession and hearing a performance by an expert instrumentalist or a singer.

Garsington Opera's Youth Company – comprising 80 young people aged 9 to 21 – performed The Happy Princess in 2019

We have used this format to create a weekly arts provision that ticks boxes across the curriculum, and is useful for all ages from primary to GCSE. It links top professional experts in directly with the students, and provides further resources to watch. Teachers can use these workshops to explore a particular opera or aria further.

Participants share their contributions via Zoom

Doing workshops digitally means that we can reach more students than ever before. We can share practice with others and get feedback from all round the world. Although our usual workshops are fully funded for schools, the schools still need to provide the time, resources and a teacher to be present. Digitally, we can be much more fluid and hopefully reach schools who might not have had the space or staffing to embrace these projects. It will undoubtedly change the way we work in the future.

Of course this is not our first foray into digital learning. We have been developing a learning app – APPRA – providing resources to enhance our workshops. But the imposition of lockdown forced us to confront the challenges of digital learning head on, to produce something instantly. ‘Monday Motivation’ was conceived within 24 hours of projects being cancelled and went live within a week. It wasn't polished, edited or streamlined. But within this framework we can take many more risks and trial ideas, and get instant feedback. We'd love to hear from any teachers about how we can make our workshops more relevant to your students – please contact me via the Garsington Opera website (www.garsingtonopera.org).

Resources are available at www.garsingtonopera.org/performance/resources