Abstract

Young people's relation with opera is problematic. This teaching project, based on the "Seguidilla" from "Carmen", is intended for a class of the middle upper school. It aims to offer adolescents a significant encounter with Bizet by focusing upon how the main character in the opera reflects teen sensibilites. At the same time, it adopts an approach based more on discovery and the posing of problems than on the mere communication of information. The activities proposed thus tend to create a relation with the opera through a process of unvelling rather than one of explanation. Curiosity, stimulated by a search for significance and meaning, should not only motivate and guide the absirption of historical information but also become the "driving force" behind a willingness to encounter new genres and styles. In this way, the pupils develop curiosity and critical ability with regard to a musical repertoire that is less familiar to them; they also refine their ability to analyse and interpret, to see works in context and to express their own creativity. Preceded not by the presentation of information but by the posing of some questions, the first listening aims at stimulating a collective discussion regarding genre and era. At a second listening the pupils are asked to suggest what situation might have inspired the characteristics they identify in the music. This results in a re construction of certain structural aspects (a profile of melody and dynamics, rhythmical metrical features, agogics, vocal register, instrumentation, etc.) on the basis of a reading of meaning and significance. Then the place of the "Seguidilla" in the dramatic structure of "Carmen" is outlined; the structure of the plot is given and the text analysed so as to produce an overall vision of the scene and the whole opera. In parallel, the project also works towards seeing the piece in its historical context. In the second phase one focuses on the performance of the character of "Carmen", which since 1875 has been interpreted in various ways, above all in the cinema. There is then a screening and analysis of C. Saura's film "Carmen Story", with particular focus on the scene in which the "Seguidilla" appears, both in its original version and in a flamenco version. This leads on to a reflection upon the relation between the operatic tradition and the re working of certain stylemes of popular culture that one can see in Bizet and various composers of his day. At the same time, it also proposes activities that involve the pupils in a work of production: this both motivates them to listen more closely and to experiment with musical rules and concepts and thus understand them more fully. This final phase envisages the creation of a stage preformance or a video based on the story of Carmen. It is this combination of doing and understanding which characterises this process of "re appropriation" of opera at both a didactic and cultural level.