Interactive
“The Telephone”
Composed by Gian Carlo Menotti
Libretto by Gian Carlo Menotti
“Mooch the Magnificent”
Composed by Lauren Bernofsky
Libretto by Scott Russell Sanders
Contact Information
http://rok.kimcarballo.com
Email: kcarball@indiana.edu
Telephone: (812) 856-7112
Address:
Kim Carballo
Music Addition MA116
Indiana University Jacobs School of Music
1201 East Third Street
Bloomington, IN 47405
With Special Thanks to Indiana Campus Compact
This project was partially supported by Indiana Campus Compact, private grants, and Indiana
University’s New Frontiers in the Arts and Humanities Program, with collaboration from
Indianapolis Opera.
ROK
pera is a dramatic form of theatre that includes scenery, props, and costumes just like
a play. In an opera, however, the actors are trained singers who sing their lines instead
of speaking them.
Opera combines the artistic elements of vocal music, instrumental music, drama, visual arts
(scenery and costumes), and sometimes dance.
Although operas combine many different kinds of art forms, they are characterized by a very
special kind of singing. Opera singers go through years of classical training to build strong voices
that don’t need any amplification. This means that their voices can fill up huge auditoriums
without the use of a microphone.
Another interesting characteristic of opera singing is the use of vibrato. Vibrato sounds like a
“wavering” of the pitch, and each singer has their own style that they develop over their years
of training.
In an opera, the singers are most often accompanied by an orchestra lead by a conductor,
whose job it is to coordinate the singers and instruments so that everyone is together.
In opera, a solo is called an aria. When two people sing together is it called a duet, three singers
is a trio, four a quartet, and so on. Some operas even have octets!
Many operas have a large supporting cast called the chorus, and often the chorus will be featured
in songs by themselves. Many chorus songs have become very popular over the years, and you
might know the tunes to a few already!
Questions for discussion
1. What do you think about when you hear the word “opera?”
2. What images come to mind? What sounds?
3. Have you ever seen any opera? What was it like?
ICG
Click on the starburst to go to the Interactive Curriculum Guide on the
Roundabout Opera for Kids Website.
Podcasts
The following Classics for Kids podcasts are highly recommended for introducing (or reviewing)
opera with your students. They feature simple descriptions of complex ideas interspersed with
quality musical examples. There are also mini quizzes at the end of each podcast to help
students with listening.
“What’s an Opera?”
This podcast provides a solid foundation for learning about opera. It covers basic
elements of opera, voice types, solo and group singing, as well as examples from several wellknown operas.
ICG
Click the starburst to hear the “What’s an Opera?” podcast
“Famous Instrumental Music from Operas”
A great podcast to listen to with students to help them realize that they have already
heard many songs from operas. Famous tunes like “Ride of the Valkyries” and Wagner’s
wedding march are placed into their original operatic context.
ICG
ICG
Click the starburst to hear the “Famous Music from Operas” podcast
Did you listen to both podcasts? If so click the starburst for an interactive
Jeopardy game with questions about opera derived from both of the Classics
for Kids podcasts.
Resource Pages
http://www.squidoo.com/opera-for-children
Books
Erickson, Helen, and Nicolai Gedda. A Young Person's Guide to the Opera. London: Macdonald and
Jane's, 1980. Print.
Rosenberg, Jane. Sing Me a Story: The Metropolitan Opera's Book of Opera Stories for Children. New
York, NY: Thames and Hudson, 1989. Print.
Siberell, Anne. Bravo! Brava! a Night at the Opera: Behind the Scenes with Composers, Cast, and
Crew. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2001. Print.
Thee, Christian, and Robert Levine. Behind the Curtain. New York, NY: Workman, 1994. Print.
- a Children's Opera in One Act -
The opera takes place in a zoo of robot “animals” in a dome-covered city that is part of
a worldwide network of such cities, connected by travel tubes, sealed off from the outside. The
time is late twenty-first century, after human beings, afraid of the wilds, have moved indoors.
SCENE ONE: When the curtain rises, we find Orlando tinkering with his robot animals. As he
works on them, he sings of his love for these "mechanicals". But he complains that they often
break down. A happy-go-lucky Mooch enters, singing. She offers to help maintain the robots in
exchange for being able to live at the zoo. Orlando is initially unsure that this young girl would
be right for the job, but she manages to convince him. She makes some small adjustments to
Lion, who begins to sing of his dissatisfaction at not being able to roar properly. She tinkers with
Unicorn, who then sings of her sadness at being made into a silly unicorn, when she is truly a
horse. Orlando is impressed with Mooch's abilities. He welcomes her to the zoo and then lies
down to take a nap. As he sleeps, Mooch makes further adjustments, making the animals wilder
and wilder.
SCENE TWO: Orlando wakes up from his nap and notices that Lion is now beginning to roar.
He looks inside Lion's mouth and sees that the teeth are sharper, too. Lion sings of wanting to
eat a child, to Orlando's great alarm. Lion and Unicorn sing of their desire to be wild, and
Orlando is concerned. Mooch enters with her suitcase, ready to move in. She thanks him for
his kindness and tells a story of being raised by a bear out in the wilds. Orlando doesn't believe
her, and she finally tells the real story: she is the result of a genetic experiment in a laboratory,
and she has never had real parents. Orlando pities her and invites her to stay longer in exchange
for doing maintenance on more of the mechanicals. After she works on Unicorn, the beast
begins to sing of her origins in nature. Orlando then muses about the sea and sky, remembering
them from his childhood. He sings of the wonders of nature that abounded when he lived out in
the wilds and then bemoans that they are all gone. Mooch insists that they are still there and
that it is safe to experience them, but Orlando is afraid. He admonishes Mooch not to go
outside to play. He settles down for another nap, and Mooch goes to work again, making the
animals yet wilder.
SCENE THREE: Mooch has worked in the zoo for a month or more, and the robots are now
more like animals. She wonders whether she should stay in the zoo, which is now her home, or
rather venture out into the wilds. Lion and Unicorn, now relatively wild, are no longer content
to stay in the zoo. Orlando threatens to switch them off, but Mooch tells him that this is no
longer possible. Orlando realizes that the zoo, as he knew it, has been ruined, but he now thinks
of Mooch as his daughter, and he realizes that being a father is more important to him than
being a zookeeper. Mooch tells him of her plans for them all to escape, through a secret door.
Orlando is initially afraid, but as he remembers his childhood out in nature, he is won over.
Mooch leads all the animals outside. Orlando is at first hesitant, and then he, too, steps through
the magic door and into the wilds.
Lauren Bernofsky (b. 1967, Rochester, MN) has written
over ninety works, including solo, chamber, and choral
music, as well as larger-scale works for orchestra, film,
musical, opera, and ballet. With performances spanning
the world, her music has been described as "fantastic,"
"delightful," "evocative and witty," "brilliant," and
destined to "become standard repertoire."
She holds a master's degree in composition from the
New England Conservatory and a doctorate in
composition from Boston University, and she has
taught as a professor at the Peabody Institute. Her
main composition teachers have been Bert Braud,
Robert Carl, and Lukas Foss.
Bernofsky strives to capture the unique expressive
potential of each instrument, an approach that has
made her work popular with musicians looking for new works to showcase their abilities. Her
philosophy of composition is simple: music should be a joy both to play and to hear.
Her music has been performed across the United States as well as in England, Wales, Canada,
Germany, Spain, Norway, Iceland, Korea, New Zealand, Australia, and The Netherlands. She is
published by The FJH Music Company, Frank E. Warren Music Service, Dorn Publications, Hal
Leonard, Grand Mesa, Alfred, and Boosey & Hawkes.
Lauren Bernofsky's music can be heard on the Polarfonia and Albany labels.
She lives in Bloomington, IN with her husband, Christoph Irmscher, and their children, Nicholas
and Julia.
ICG
Biography source and more information can be found at this composer’s website.
Click the starburst to explore!
from Opera Opera
(http://www.opera-opera.com.au)
Ben comes to propose to Lucy, bearing a gift of a piece of modern abstract sculpture, and
having only an hour before he has to catch a train.
After Lucy has admired the sculpture, he begins to speak but is interrupted by the
telephone ringing. It is one of Lucy's girlfriends and she talks animatedly for some time.
The phone rings again, but this time it is a wrong number.
Ben reminds Lucy that he hasn't much more time, so she rings to check the exact time.
He begins again but is again interrupted. This time it is another acquaintance, George,
who starts a quarrel with Lucy. At the end of this conversation, she retreats to her
bedroom in tears to search for a handkerchief and Ben approaches the phone with a pair
of scissors and evil intentions. The phone rings, as if in alarm, and Lucy comes to its
rescue. Before Ben can get started on his proposal, she explains that she must ring yet
another friend to discuss the quarrel with George and put her story in first.
As she does so, Ben sadly reflects that the phone seems always to come between them.
Struck by an idea he leaves the apartment leaving Lucy somewhat disconcerted and
worried because she is sure he has something on his mind. Ben goes to the nearest public
phone to call Lucy and manages to propose to her. Lucy accepts and tells him there is
one thing he mustn't forget when he is away; not her eyes, lips or hands, but her phone
number which she dictates to him over the phone.
Gian Carlo Menotti was one of the most influential
composers of American opera in the twentieth
century. He created a large body of work, and
seven of his operas and one operatic ballet are
secure in the canon of contemporary opera. He
wrote all of his own librettos, as well as librettos
for Samuel Barber and Lukas Foss. Starting with
The Medium in 1946, he directed the premieres of
all his operas and went on to become an
internationally acclaimed opera director. Although
he is best known for his operas, his works include
ballets, concerti, orchestral, and chamber music
and a large body of choral music. Critical opinion
of his significance as a composer and librettist is divided; his is credited with single-handedly
reviving interest in opera among the American public in the mid-twentieth century, but his work
also has detractors, who characterize his music as derivative and sentimental, and his
dramaturgy as manipulative. The strengths of his music include the deft psychological
illumination of the drama on-stage, transparent orchestration, fluent and idiomatic vocal writing,
genuinely expressive recitative, and a gift for memorable melody.
Menotti was born into an affluent family in Cadegliano, Italy, in 1911. His mother Ines was a
good musician who often hosted small concerts and recitals at the family villa. Gian Carlo was a
musical prodigy, and by the age of 11 he had written an opera (The Death of Pierrot). When he
was 14, he entered the Milan Conservatory. At 17, he departed for the United States with his
mother, who, with support from family friend Arturo Toscanini, saw to his enrollment at the
Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. There he began composition studies with Rosario
Scalero and met composer Samuel Barber, who became his lover and with whom he shared a
home for over 40 years. As a student, Menotti spent much of his time with the Barber family in
Westchester, PA.
NBC commissioned Menotti to write Amahl and the Night Visitors, the first opera created
especially for television, for live broadcast on Christmas Eve 1951. It became his most popular
work, has received thousands of productions, and is the most frequently performed American
opera.
Menotti received the Kennedy Center Honor for lifetime achievement in the arts in 1984, and
was Musical America's Musician of the Year in 1991.
ICG
Click the starburst to read Menotti’s biography on AllMusic.com