A Educator’s Guide to L’Italiana in Algeria By Gioachino Rossini A companion to the Student Guide HOW TO USE THIS GUIDE Opera offers a unique teaching opportunity to explore the arts through many different disciplines including literature, art, history, and music. This guide has been designed to provide educators with suggestions on how to integrate the music and historical background of Rossini’s L’italiana in Algeri into the existing curriculum. For applicable National Standards, please contact Washington National Opera’s Education and Community Programs Department at 202.448.3465 or at [email protected]. WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU GET THERE The dress rehearsal of L’italiana in Algeri will begin promptly at 7:00 p.m. The Kennedy Center Opera House doors open 30 minutes prior to the beginning of the performance. Please plan to arrive early, as latecomers will be seated only at suitable breaks in the music, often not until intermission. Seating at Washington National Opera’s dress rehearsals is open. When you arrive, please have your passes ready to present to the ushers who will direct you to the area of the Opera House where you will be seated. The running time for this rehearsal of L’italiana in Algeri is approximately two hours and 40 minutes, including one intermission. YOUR ROLE IN OPERA Opera is a collaborative art. It requires the work of many people including the director, designer, singers, the orchestra, crew, and the audience. The audience is an important part of every performance. As an audience member, your role is to suspend disbelief and imagine that the story enacted before you is really happening, to let the action and music surround you, and to become part of the show. To help your students feel comfortable with their role as opera-goers, Washington National Opera has prepared some tips for performance etiquette. Please review What you will see and other stuff… (in the Student Guide) with your students. Following these guidelines will help everyone have a great experience! THE SETTING History/Social Studies: Modern Italy and Algeria are very different from the time period in which Rossini was composing. Research the period in which Rossini lived, and describe what it would have been like to live in Italy during the early 1800s and what the Italians’ perceptions of the Algerians were at the time. Music History: Have students find other examples of composers and librettists who wrote operas in their native language, but set the story in a country and culture foreign to their own. The examples in the Student Guide include Giacomo Puccini’s Turandot and Madama Butterfly, and Georges Bizet’s Carmen. Compare these operas with L’italiana in Algeri and discuss how the composer’s own culture colored his portrayal of the country he was writing about. Discuss if these are accurate portrayals of the foreign country presented. (continued on page 2) THE SETTING, continued Visual/Performing Arts: Watch a video of L’italiana in on his side, even though they are Italian slaves. Isabella Algeri either before or after you attend the dress rehearsal. is portrayed as independent, clever and manipulative, Compare and contrast the two productions. How are they while Elvira is portrayed as submissive and childlike. Is similar? How are they different? Are they set in the same this an accurate portrayal of the way women are regarded time period or is one updated? Be sure to discuss visual in Islamic nations today? elements such as set design, lighting, and costumes as well as the musical and performance aspects. Language Arts: Compare and contrast similar storylines and character relationships in other works such as Language Arts: The following vocabulary words are Mozart’s Abduction from the Seraglio and the musical The bolded the first time they appear in the Student Guide. King and I by Oscar Hammerstein II. Review them with your students. Brief definitions are provided in the Vocabulary section, but they can be expanded upon in discussion. PIRATES! Basso buffo Concertmaster History/Social Studies: Today the term “piracy” is most Bey Corsair often associated with the internet. Discuss with your Buccaneer Harem students what piracy means today and in what different ways people commit acts of piracy. Commedia dell’arte Mark History/Social Studies: Many novels Opera buffa Recitative and Hollywood films depict pirates Opera seria Stock characters by combining traits of corsairs and buccaneers. Review the differences Privateer Sultan between these two types of pirates, have students research them further, and discuss how fact becomes woven with fiction to create colorful characters T H E S T O R Y and legendary stories. Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean is a Theater/Dance: The storyline and characters in this great example. opera can be difficult to follow. Review the synopsis and characters in the Student Guide with your students and have them physically depict the storyline and characters through movement in order to better understand the sequence of events. OPERA BUFFA History/Social Studies: Discuss the problems with Music History: Compare and contrast opera seria and writing about another culture one is unfamiliar with, opera buffa. Find recorded examples of both and have especially from that culture’s point of view. What are the students listen to them to pick out the differences in the social implications? music. History/Social Studies: Discuss Music: If your class were writing a modern-day opera the role of the women in buffa, what would the music and the recitative sound Fun Fact: L’italiana in Algeri. The male P a p p a t a c i like? How is recitative similar to hip-hop and rap? Would characters do not trust the your class use this musical form of rap or hip-hop as a is a made-up women and do not treat word, the etymology modern-day recitative? What would the subject matter be them with respect. and how would the language (dialogue) be constructed? of which, breaks the word Notice how Mustafà down into pappa, referring to Keep in mind that opera buffa was created to appeal to the trusts Lindoro and average person in the time in which it was written. baby food and taci, meaning Taddeo because “quiet” in Italian. This refers they are men, and Theater: Have students research commedia dell’arte and directly to what a Pappataci therefore must be discuss its influences on L’italiana in Algeri. must do in the opera: eat, drink, and be silent. Tip How to help your students engage in active listening. • Keep listening sections brief at first. • Repeat listening selections at least three T H E M U S I C times. First for introduction and enjoyment, second for starting, stopping, and asking Musical Highlights: Washington National Opera Commentary on questions, and third to allow students CDSM provides a comprehensive introduction to this opera, but if your to recognize the concepts you have schedule is limited, be sure to play the following tracks for your students discussed. to highlight some important moments in L’italiana in Algeri. • Allow your students time to respond to the music. Track 2: About Rossini—Narration about Rossini and opera buffa Track 5: Lindoro, the Sorrowing Lover—Lindoro’s aria, Languir per una bella Track 8: …the Italian Girl—Isabella singing Cruda sorte! Tracks 12,13, &14: Act One Finale—The ingenious quintet where everyone is confused! Track 19: The “Pappataci” Trio—Mustafà, Lindoro, and Taddeo Track 20: Isabella, the Heroic—One of Isabella’s biggest arias, Pensa alla Patria Visual Art: Play the music of Rossini’s L’italiana in Algeri and have students sketch or paint representations of the emotions they feel while listening to the music. Discuss how artists are often influenced to draw, paint, or sculpt works of art based on a piece of music. OPERA PRODUCTION Language Arts/Marketing: Find examples of program a review of the performance of L’italiana in Algeri. After notes from operas or other performances. Research the the production opens, check local papers for reviews of differences between marketing material and program and have students compare these reviews to their own. notes. Outline program notes for L’italiana in Algeri While writing the review, make sure students keep in including information on the composer, librettist, mind these points: social and historical context of the piece, and the music. Continue your outline with interpretive information • A review should tell a story. including sets, costumes, setting, etc. Remember, • It should be written in simple, uncomplicated program notes are not long. From your outline, write a language. short article (800 words) that will prepare the audience • The purpose of the review is not to say whether the for the performance you have chosen. music is good or bad; it is to articulate what the music was like both subjectively and objectively. Language Arts/Journalism: Have your students write • Be constructive, not destructive, in your review. • Avoid writing in the first person and passive tense. • Follow through on your thoughts to help defend your opinion. Washington National Opera RESOURSES Founded in 1956, Washington National Opera Online: is recognized today as one of the leading opera Rossini companies in the United States. Under the leadership http://w3.rz-berlin.mpg.de/cmp/rossini.html of General Director Plácido Domingo, Washington http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gioacchino_Rossini National Opera continues to build on its rich history http://www.nndb.com/people/194/000025119/ by offering productions of consistently high artistic standards and balancing popular grand opera with Historic Italy new or less frequently performed works. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italy As part of the Center for Education and Training Historic Algeria at Washington National Opera, Education and http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ag.html Community Programs provides a wide array of programs to serve a diverse local and national Pirates audience of all ages.