Opera Education

For my opera project I decided to look at Alice Parker's opera Martyr's Mirror. It's really interesting because it's written mainly for amateurs in a church setting. But it's extremely adaptable, so it could really work practically anywhere except for a large opera house. I've been scraping my mind as to what to do for my presentation. I haven't quite put my finger on what I would like to do. Of course, there's an aria or two that might be fun and it would be interesting to show Parker's composition style outside of arrangement. However, they are short and do not fully give an idea of what the opera is like or how it incorporates popular tunes from the time period in which it is set. What I would really like to focus on is the education aspect of the opera. I have been very interested, for a while now, in education in opera for people who wouldn't typically go to see opera (which is very nearly everyone, let's be honest). Interesting, is that Alice Parker is also interested in music education and certainly uses the amateur opera to educate, not only about opera, but also about various forms of music. This is not to mention the benefit of a community coming together to work towards the production. I think her opera is a perfect way to get new people in the doors who wouldn't ever step foot into an opera house otherwise. It gives them something they can connect to which would hopefully lead them to making connections to more types of music in their future. So, all this is to say, I would like to present something about the educational aspect of this opera, but I am not quite sure about how to go about that. More about this later.