What is an Orchestra?
· Brainstorm with your students about what an orchestra is.
· Make a semantic map: put suggested words around the board as the students brainstorm.
· Have students justify their ideas.
· Discuss the instruments and classification of instruments in the orchestra.
· Introduce how the orchestra is arranged, using a diagram for illustration.
· Using words in the semantic map, have students write a composition on what an orchestra is.

What is Opera?
· Brainstorm with your students about what an opera is. What stereotypes have they heard?
· Discuss how opera singers' voices are not amplified and how singers must project.
· Introduce the voice parts and operatic singing.
· Make a chart of the voice parts from high to low.
· Play examples of different voices and have students brainstorm on the character's personality.
· Discuss typical roles of different voice parts. (ie. Soprano is often the heroine, Bass is often evil.)
· With the class, choose a current movie or tv show and assign each character a voice part.

Introducing a Specific Opera
· Start by introducing the characters of the opera and their voices.
· Tell a little bit about the story through the characters.
· Ask students for adjectives to describe the characters.
· Using their adjectives, ask students to write character analyses.
· Using character analyses, have students write their own story before learning the full synopsis.
· Use the students' stories to then introduce the full synopsis.
· Ask students to draw a picture of the opera's setting as it is described in the libretto.
· Have students read the libretto aloud as play. Stop periodically to review what has happened.
· As you progress through the libretto, listen to the music from different sections of the opera.
· Point out how the music highlights the drama.
· How does the music convey characters' emotions?
· Play each character's introductory aria. Does it match their character analyses?
· Have students draw a picture of their favorite character in appropriate costume.
· Have students draw a picture of their favorite scene.
· After studying each act, ask students to predict what will happen next.
· Before teaching them the end of the story, ask students to write their own endings.

Additional Ideas
· After each class, have students summarize the story covered that day.
· Have students research the composer and librettist.
· Have students research the time of the opera (ie., ancient egypt, gypsies, Paris, etc.).