Opera Course Query

[Jenna]

Opera Lovers...

I am leading a group discussion on opera as drama in a few weeks and would love some feedback from you. I assume most people who sign up for my course will be opera lovers, so I don't think I'll be needing to convince them how wonderful opera is. Rather, it is a course to discuss staging opera--how is it staged? why does it work? production concepts? I am thinking of seeing I can get some guests speakers for a round-table discussion. As opera lovers yourselves, if you had opera directors, opera critics, opera historians, and opera singers with you, for an 45 round-table discuss, and the focus was staging opera,what sort of topics might we reasonably cover? What questions would you have? What would you want to know? What else would you find useful in a discussion like this?

Thanks!

[Aaron]

I support opera discussions in all forms!
Some thoughts are:
- how has staging changed over time?, What makes opera relevant at the time?
- How can changes in staging widen opera's appeal?

[Mary Anne]

I would ask the directors which staging worked the best and which did not work, and why.