Students from the Tracy Montessori School attend ELIXIR OF LOVE, Nov. 2022

School Outreach

Dear Educators, 

Livermore Valley Opera is happy to present some classroom activities to use during the 2021-2022 school year as part of our Educational Outreach program. There are several activities made available below to accompany this video of The Housekeeper Becomes the Wife offers several classroom activities and assignments to encourage students to develop their critical thinking skills, allow students to discover something that they may have never heard or seen before, as well as fulfill California Standards for Music Education that include common core and cross cultural discussion and communication as addressed under “Responding to Artistic Works” — 

• Anchor Standard 8: Interpret Intent and Meaning in Artistic Work
• Anchor Standard 9: Apply Criteria to Evaluate Artistic Work
• Anchor Standard 11: Relate Artistic Ideas and Works with Societal, Cultural, and Historical Context to Deepen Understanding.

You can access the full list of standards as well as grade specific criteria at https://www.cde.ca.gov/be/st/ss/documents/caartsstandards.pdf
I encourage you to engage your students in a pre-opera discussion such as a “KWL – Know, Want to Know, and Learned” and guide them through the listening process. 

With more advanced students, such as middle or high school, or in music-specific classes, teachers can help guide students through listening to specific sections of music to cover music standards such as listening for A B A’ modes, minor versus major, loud versus soft, or fast versus slow. You can also dive deeper into music history by introducing periods in music history. This piece is originally from the Baroque period, but has been staged in a more contemporary style – which for children will still seem “old fashioned”! I encourage you to ask students how this music is different from popular music they might stream on their computer or music from Broadway musicals.

These resources and the video from Livermore Valley Opera are available to you completely free through funding from the local community to help our young people to build an appreciation for the arts from a young age. 

We hope that the available activities here provide you with some fun and engaging lessons in what has been a very challenging year for teachers. We also understand that the use of video is not ideal, and we hope to be back with you in person for live performances next year. Teachers – You. Are. Awesome. Please enjoy these resources for your classroom. Feel free to reach out should you have any questions about the curricula. I am also happy to have a virtual visit with your classroom and offer a “Q & A” session with your students. 

Best wishes for the rest of the school year!

Sincerely, 

Liesl McPherrin
Director of Educational Outreach
Livermore Valley Opera
[email protected]

The Housekeeper Becomes the Wife

Resources

Livermore Valley Opera is a facet of the Tri-Valley community and believes that opera should be introduced and accessible to people of all ages and backgrounds. Our mission is to encourage a wider appreciation of opera in our community. Livermore Valley Opera seeks to develop relationships with our local community by expanding our performances from the opera stage to libraries, senior homes, and our local community colleges. 

Principle artists from Livermore Valley Opera’s MainStage productions often perform at local senior communities, including Rossmoor, Heritage Estates, Stoneridge Creek and Brookdale Senior Communities, as well as offer masterclasses to budding singers at our local colleges and high schools. 

If you are interested in bringing Livermore Valley Opera’s artists to your facility, or hosting an OperaTalk, please contact Liesl McPherrin, [email protected] to coordinate a visit. We look forward to sharing our music making with you. 

Sincerely, 

Liesl McPherrin
LVO Director of Educational and Community Outreach