Engagement,Participation,and Situated Learning in a Children’s Opera Chorus Program

Abstract

In recent years, opera companies throughout the United Kingdom have begun to provide educational programs for children that offer opportunities for “apprenticeship” training in the context of professional opera productions, alongside formal choral musicianship training. This article outlines a qualitative case study of a recently established children’s opera chorus program located in a northern England city, in which I investigated the extent to which the children became engaged with opera as a genre through their participation in the program. This study also considers the extent to which such programs affected children’s emerging cultural identities and musical preferences in an acculturative sense. Findings suggested that the authenticity and situatedness of the learning experience had a positive impact on the children’s engagement, with those that had participated in main-stage productions being most likely to state that they wished to pursue opera or musical theatre as a career in later life.

Keywords

opera education engagement situated learning participation acculturation

Since the 1950s, North American and European opera companies, concerned with positively changing public perceptions of opera as a “high-brow” art, have become increasingly committed to developing audience outreach and education about opera and have been focused particularly on the idea of promoting opera among the very young.¹ Many varied ways of engaging children and adolescents in opera—in the arenas of both audience appreciation and performance participation—have emerged and developed over the past half century in European and North American contexts. From the 1960s, North American opera companies have instigated community opera education projects in schools and other community centers. Research on the efficacy of such projects in promoting engagement with opera has been intermittent, and most studies have focused on arts partnerships with schools and the potential for such partnerships to foster an integrated arts educational experience through experimentation with opera as creative concept (Burrack & Maltas, 2006; La Valley, 1977; Leung & Leung, 2010; Rossi, 2000; Sims, 1992; Tambling, 1999; Wignall, 1988). Such studies demonstrate that encouraging children to participate in nonformal programs drawing on “real-world” ways of learning and performing in professional performance practice can be an important key to engaged participation in the arts in and beyond the school.

Training and musicianship programs for inducting children into the professional performance of opera emerged around the same time as school-based arts partnership programs, with a more in-depth approach to participation. Taking the form of children’s choruses, such programs differ from school-based programs in directly involving children in the public professional world of opera performance. Notable world leaders in the field of children’s opera performance training are the New York Metropolitan Opera Children’s Chorus (Metropolitan Opera, 2013) and the autonomous Canadian Children’s Opera Company (CCOC; 2013). Both institutions use an apprenticeship model (Burwell, 2012; Griffiths & Woolf, 2009; Harwood, 1993; Jorgensen, 1997; Nielsen, 2006) in the training of children as opera performers, giving intensive class instruction in musicianship for about a year before providing opportunities for choral and solo roles in main-stage opera productions; the Metropolitan Opera Children’s Chorus in particular provides free class tuition, and there is intense, auditioned competition for places.

The Metropolitan Opera Children’s Chorus and CCOC, in pioneering the children’s opera chorus program, have created the exemplar for the development of similar children’s choral programs in other major opera centers throughout North America and, later, in traditional European centers of opera performance, such as the Paris National Opera, which established a children’s chorus program in 1985 (Maitrise des Hauts des Seines, 2011), and La Scala, Milan, whose children’s chorus program was founded in 1984 (Accademia Teatro alla Scala, 2013). Both of these choral programs adopted the Metropolitan Opera model of drawing on untapped performance potential through audition, for intensive musicianship training followed quickly by onstage “apprenticeship” and concert opportunities.

Opera Education in a U.K. Context

The United Kingdom was relatively late in joining in the development of the children’s opera chorus program, despite a thriving and diverse opera scene, an established community music initiative, and a long history of British composers composing opera for children. In 2010, the Royal Opera House was one of the first British opera companies to develop a children’s opera chorus program for 9- to 12-year-olds (Royal Opera House, 2013). In 2011, the Leeds-based Opera North followed suit, with the establishment of the Opera North Children’s Chorus (ONCC) for children ages 7 to 13 (Opera North, 2013a); and Welsh National Opera developed a similar training program around the same time, simply called the Singing Club, for children ages 10 to 14 (Welsh National Opera, 2013).

All the current children’s opera chorus programs in the United Kingdom also follow the North American model of subsidized, intensive musicianship training followed by quick immersion in professional performance contexts and events. A notable feature of the recruitment process for both the Royal Opera House Youth Opera Company and the ONCC is the use of community engagement and participation projects in schools both to generate general interest in opera as a genre and to democratically identify and attract potential candidates for the children’s chorus program on the basis of children’s ability to individually follow instruction and sing comfortably during the community engagement event (Elkin, 2012; Opera North Education and Engagement Office, 2012; Royal Opera House, 2013). In addition, once admitted, the young members of such choruses are expected to perform in professional contexts at a very high semiprofessional level from early on in training. Therefore, the potential for quick and effective development as a performer is expected, a factor that is measured from the outset by audition and specific selection processes. While there are not necessarily socioeconomic barriers to participation, there are certainly high expectations and potentially the sense of competitiveness that may ensue from such expectations, much as might be encountered in the environment of the junior conservatoire. As such, the children’s opera chorus program may act as a preprofessional training arena for children with demonstrable performance ability and motivation.

What makes the children’s opera chorus program special educationally is the opportunity for situated learning in the world of the opera theatre. Lave and Wenger’s (1991) concept of situated learning considers socially mediated experiential learning processes that occur specifically in particular professional contexts:

[Situated] learning . . . is recognized as a social phenomenon constituted in the experienced, lived-in world, through legitimate peripheral participation in ongoing social practice; the process of changing knowledgeable skill is subsumed in processes of changing identity in and through membership in a community of practitioners; and mastery is an organizational, relational characteristic of communities of practice. (p. 64)

This concept has been considerably pertinent to the examination of early professional training for adults in fields such as medicine and sport (Cope, Cuthbertson, & Stoddart, 2000; Kirk & Kinchin, 2003). Situated learning also has been considered in relation to school-based practical learning (Kirk & Macdonald, 1998). The in situ theatre-based children’s opera chorus training program offers an authentic platform for legitimate peripheral participation in professional operatic and concert practice and blends such opportunities with nonformal programs of performing arts training, with a particular emphasis on singing-based musicianship tuition. In doing so, opera chorus training for children offers a useful complement for formal music education in schools.²

Finally, one may consider the impact on children of long-term immersion in the educational culture of the opera chorus program as a corollary of situated learning. Some of the aforementioned children’s opera chorus programs offer the potential for 5 or more years’ continuous training in the performing arts at a crucial time for cultural identity formation in preadolescent children. A clear connection between long-term arts participation opportunities and lifelong engagement or even acculturation within an art form has been established in a wide variety of educational ethnographies and identity studies (Campbell, 2011; Campbell, Connell, & Beegle, 2007; Davidson & Burland, 2006; Pitts, 2004, 2008, 2009; Sichivitsa, 2007; Walker, 2007). Thus, the purpose of the present study is to establish the extent to which the children can become engaged with or even ultimately acculturated with the concept of opera through situated learning and participation in “real-world” opera-related performance activities: choral concerts, actual operas, and other public events.

Method

I chose for my study to focus on the experience of children participating in the ONCC, based in Leeds, West Yorkshire, United Kingdom. This qualitative case study is based on observations made over the course of a year (May 2012–2013) of the educational processes in ONCC rehearsals and performances. I employed qualitative methods drawn from ethnographic approaches to educational research (Merriam, 2014; Radocy, 1994; Schwadron, 1970; Seidman, 2013; S. Wilson, 1977) in order to access the perspectives of those involved through narrative inquiry and observation of group interactions. Following principles of naturalistic observation and grounded theory (Glaser & Strauss, 2009; S. Wilson, 1977), I began by carrying out unstructured observations, taking detailed field notes, and writing reflective notes after each observation in order to process data and identify emergent concepts pertinent to the educational processes observed. The ONCC education officer, Michael, acted as “gatekeeper” for the duration of the research.³ He forwarded an email containing information about the research to parents of participants. For observations of the full chorus in rehearsal, I was able to record audio, but video recording and photography were not allowed, and audio recording was prohibited for public performances. This contributed to my choice to maintain a detailed field journal, making preliminary notes during the observations and expanding upon the notes with my reflections after each observation was complete, generating “thick description” (Emerson, Fretz, & Shaw, 2011; Geertz, 1994). I also informally discussed my observations with ONCC musical directors and education personnel in order to validate initial findings.

Short questionnaires comprising a mix of open-ended and closed-ended questions were administered by email, midway through the observation period (October 2012), to participants who had been members of ONCC for over a year, since its inception in June 2011 (see Appendix A in the online version of the article). These children numbered 61 in all, from a total of 78 members registered for the academic year 2012–2013. Michael had warned me that because ONCC was a relatively new phenomenon, these children already had completed several questionnaires about their experience for the Opera North organization, as well as lengthy blog entries, and that this might impact their current willingness to complete the questionnaire for my survey. Indeed, just over a third (22 out of 61) answered the questionnaire, but those who did offered detailed responses—many strongly positive but also some negative—to open-ended questions. From these responses, I extrapolated the themes that emerged with the most frequency (and the most detail) across all the responses, which I was then able to explore in semistructured interviews with seven of the children (these included several who had partaken in main-stage opera performances and some who had not but expressed a strong ambition to do so). Time limitations meant that I could interview only a small cross section of those who had answered the questionnaire, and the seven selected children were those who had written particularly detailed responses to open-ended questions.

Interviews were conducted on a one-on-one basis during ONCC rehearsal periods, lasting between 45 min to over an hour, and were chaperoned by ONCC interns, in accordance with ONCC child protection policy.⁴ In addition, I conducted interviews with the two main ONCC musical directors, each interview lasting about an hour and a half. All interviews were audio recorded and transcribed and then annotated with my comments, observations, and analyses.

Informal discussions with Opera North educational personnel and interns helped triangulate my reflections on group observations and on interviews, and I also had some opportunities to informally chat about ONCC educational policy with education officers. Material culture (Hodder, 2012; Tilley, Keane, Küchler, Rowlands, & Spyer, 2006), such as Opera North policy documents, children’s blogs, and educational reports as well as reviews and other relevant accounts of opera and musical theatre performance and reception in a North of England context, also helped to both validate data and shape and situate this study in its broader cultural context.

Case Context: ONCC

History and Inception

ONCC was established in 2011; among the impetuses for the establishment of a children’s opera chorus at Opera North (outside of directly educational mandates) included the impending countrywide Cultural Olympiad in 2012. This was followed by the Opera North’s Britten festival in 2013, celebrating the centennial year of the composer, many of whose dramatic vocal works characteristically place focus on the child performer, for example, St. Nicholas Cantata (1948), The Little Sweep (1949), and Noye’s Fludde (1958). Because of the Opera North 2013 celebration of Britten’s works, ONCC and selected members thereof were center stage in many Opera North performances in the 2012 autumn season and much of 2013. Performances included Britten’s St. Nicholas Cantata, with the Opera North orchestra and chorus; the operas Albert Herring and A Midsummer Night’s Dream; and A Ceremony of Carols in December 2013. Main-stage productions in which children from ONCC performed and toured during the time of study included Tchaikovsky’s Queen of Spades (autumn 2011), Puccini’s Madama Butterfly (spring 2012), Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel (summer 2012), Verdi’s Otello (spring 2013), and a staging of Handel’s oratorio Joshua (early summer, 2013). The full ONCC chorus performed in a site-specific work, Overworlds and Underworlds, specially devised for the Cultural Olympiad by the Quay Brothers (performance artists) for the city of Leeds in May 2012. Since its inception, ONCC has performed in many concerts in venues throughout Yorkshire and London.

Structure, Aims, and Objectives

ONCC is intended for children ages 7 to 13, an age choice that is dependent on both aesthetic and practical factors: The children need to both sound and look like children for performance in operas as a children’s opera chorus. An interim ONCC report in April 2012 stressed the potential of the program to

increase opportunities for children in Leeds and the surrounding areas to explore their music-making potential beyond first access . . . improve attitudes to music making amongst children and families [and] develop Opera North’s capacity to include children from all backgrounds in their main stage performances. (Opera North Education and Engagement Office, 2012)

A reading of early ONCC reports and policy documents suggested that dramatic training in preparation for operatic stage performance was not emphasized strongly; initial observations confirmed that dramatic training was not a central feature of those early stage rehearsals.

As its very title implied, the initiating pedagogical focus for the ONCC was professional choral training, drawing on a long-established British tradition of professional-level children’s choirs, as exemplified in the cathedral choir school tradition. Indeed, in 2012–2013, ONCC’s music director, John, an experienced operatic conductor, was himself a chorister at the Westminster Cathedral Choir School. Certain practices of the Westminster Cathedral school were reflected in ONCC operations under his direction, such as the division of the ONCC children into ability groupings: probationers (youngest, least experienced members), juniors (ages 7–9), and seniors (ages 10–13). John (whose duties include musical preparation and artistic direction) worked in conjunction with a vocal consultant, Ruth, who specialized in the technical areas of vocal development and musicianship training of young children and adolescents. Ruth too had a musical training immersed in childhood professional choral work, in her case, growing up as a member of the prestigious National Youth Choirs of Great Britain and then apprenticing as a choral conductor with the same institution. The ONCC team also included two project managers, a répétiteur (rehearsal pianist) and a trainee répétiteur, as well as a number of volunteers and trainees, who assisted at rehearsals while observing the collaborative work of the musical director and vocal consultant. Thus, ONCC functioned as a learning community on many levels and not just for the child participants.

ONCC regular rehearsals were held once a week during school terms, on Thursdays from 5:00 until 7:30 p.m., usually in the Yorkshire Dance studio, nearby the Leeds Grand Theatre, where Opera North is based. Membership in ONCC is dependent on an initial audition process as well as end-of-year assessments to determine progress and vocal development. ONCC auditions are conducted in the manner of a community engagement event and involved professional music and artistic directors workshopping a new song with a large group of children, who were then paired off for audition. The auditioners assess the child’s existing and potential ability to match pitch, work with others, and learn new material quickly. Membership in ONCC is free for the children, and ONCC also offers bursaries to help low-income ONCC members and their families with travel, uniform fees, and tickets to Opera North events (Opera North Education and Engagement Office, 2012, p. 2). ONCC has a defined capacity for 90 members, though when I began observing the chorus in mid-2012, the total membership was 78, subdividing into 56 senior members, 17 junior members, and five probationary members (ONCC, 2012a). At the time of the study, the gender ratio was in favor of girls, with 54 girls and 24 boys enrolled as members in May 2012. The effort in recruiting children for ONCC from disadvantaged backgrounds was reflected in a small number of members who fit the necessary criteria: Five children were from areas designated as deprived by the Leeds Council and the Leeds Educational Authority, and 11 were children who attended school in inner-city areas targeted by Opera North Education community engagement events. Two children were recipients of ONCC bursaries, the main criterion for eligibility for bursary funds being existing entitlement to free school meals (Opera North Education and Engagement Office, 2012).

Formal Learning Processes and Repertoire

ONCC training involved a mix of musicianship (notational literacy) and vocal training with the learning and rehearsal of choral concert repertoire, and the balance of these elements evolved over the year of observational study. In early 2012 when I began observations, the rehearsals were initially split into three segments, with the 5 to 5:30 p.m. slot being the time for “probationers” and younger juniors (i.e., those with less experience, literacy, and vocal skills) to work with Ruth on musicianship and vocal development in preparation for the demands of the main rehearsal. The main rehearsal, involving probationers, juniors, and seniors, took place between 5:30 and 7:00 p.m., and the final segment, from 7 to 7:30 p.m. was reserved for the rehearsal of advanced concert repertoire with the seniors. In autumn 2012, this later rehearsal slot became reserved for the ONCC “semichorus,” a subgroup of the most experienced and competent singers that worked on professional concert and opera repertoire for concert performance with the main Opera North company and orchestra. Also around this time the ONCC chorus members were segregated by voice type into a typical SSA (soprano 1, soprano 2, and alto voices) children’s choir formation.

The ONCC repertoire that I observed in regular rehearsals included pieces that acted as pedagogically significant material and “real-world” concert pieces that the choir had to sing as part of the requirements for the concerts and commissioned performance events in which they frequently took part. The works were stylistically varied, including folk song arrangements in the original language, contemporary compositions by composers such as Gavin Bryars (who was the commissioned composer for the 2012 Overworlds and Underworlds project), Britten’s choral pieces, and well-known choral extracts from operas and musicals (Opera North Children’s Chorus, 2012b). The ONCC interim report emphasized some basic pedagogical aims that were addressed in the musicianship/warm-up segment of the rehearsals and in repertoire choice. The inclusion of folk song arrangements “in six different languages” was part of a drive to familiarize the children with the multilingual demands of both operatic vocal music and professional choral repertoire; another central technical aim was the extension of the children’s vocal range into the higher treble register (C5–C6), “as this is generally not covered in singing within schools” (Opera North Education and Engagement Office, 2012, p. 2).

Findings

Concepts Emerging From Observation of ONCC Classes and Performances

I began my research with class and rehearsal observations in May 2012 and, shortly after that, attended the Overworlds and Underworlds Cultural Olympiad event in mid- to late May 2012. I also attended a performance of Opera North’s production of Carousel at that time (two ONCC children were selected for performance in this main-stage musical theatre event). A number of concepts emerged during initial observations of rehearsals and performances and from perusal of ONCC material culture, such as educational reports and policy documents, early in the observational part of the research. These concepts helped hone my understanding of the ONCC phenomenon and direct the formulation of a questionnaire and more in-depth inquiry in subsequent interviews. Initial conceptual categories derived through unstructured observation naturally evolved in the narrative processes generated in the questionnaire and interview responses, leading to new and sometimes unexpected insights later in the research process. Two of the more salient concepts are discussed in the following in relation to observations, and several important concepts relating to the psychosocial impact of ONCC on children’s musical preferences and identity formation then organically evolved in questionnaire and interview data. While every attempt was made to keep data categories discreet, a natural overlap inevitably occurred, and the total of eight concepts that emerged from the data have been listed chronologically here, within (and in some cases intersecting across) the broader three data categories defined as observational, questionnaire, and interview data.

Concept 1: drama in ONCC training

One question that arose before I embarked on observation was whether significant conceptual differences existed between what ONCC did and what an “ordinary” school choir might do. An important conceptual difference seemed to lie in the elements of drama and staging that might be informally incorporated into a choral rehearsal or performance, and in observations, this was a simple element that I looked for and remarked on in my field journal. Indeed, the two music directors did attempt to bring a “dramatic” angle to the chorus’ repertoire and performance events. I knew from speaking with Michael and John that the chorus’s impending performance in the Overworlds and Underworlds event (May 2012), for example, would have a degree of semistaging to it (in that it would have only elements of staging rather than a fully dramatized performance); in this case, the children would be wearing costumes and performing in a site-specific context, arranged in single file along the ornate Victorian balconies of the Leeds County Arcade. Earlier, Michael had made available to me several examples of blog entries that the children had written about their preparations for Overworlds and Underworlds, some of which highlighted aspects of the ONCC experience that marked it as a specifically operatic choral training, such as use of costume, learning songs in multiple languages, and the “eventfulness” that came from learning and publicly performing specially commissioned works. These entries were volunteered by the children mainly as a commentary on their experience participating in the 2012 Cultural Olympiad “Leeds Canvas” event (published later on the Opera North Blog; Opera North, 2012):

It’s a really exciting prospect to be singing in the Victoria Quarter and to be wearing costumes. We will be wearing a black cloak and a hat and a neckerchief. . . . Amazingly, four of the songs we sing were written for us! . . . The music’s really good but some languages (German!) are very tricky to learn, especially as we’ve also had to sing in Spanish and lots of other languages for World Songs. (SL, age 10)

Singing in the chorus has given me the opportunities to do things that I would have never done before. . . . At the moment we are preparing to perform Overworlds and Underworlds in the Leeds Canvas. These songs have been written especially for us which is really exciting . . . some of the words are in German which has been a bit confusing to learn. (HE, age 11)

In many of the rehearsals that I observed, I noted elements of pedagogical practice that fused musical learning with movement and gesture, particularly through the use of simple choreography to illustrate the texts of the choral material. Ruth had particular expertise in Kodály musicianship training, which typically draws on folk songs and action songs within a choral singing context to “naturally” impart notions of pitch, interval, and rhythm using movement and gesture to reinforce musical/vocal expression (Houlahan & Tacka, 2008). Kodály method is related to and partly influenced by the Orff “music and movement” method, which similarly integrates music, speech and movement in the holistic musical teaching of young children.⁵ The relevance of both methods to the teaching of basic operatic concepts is obvious: Operatic performance also requires the skill of integrating singing, movement, and gesture for its full expression. Commenting on this process, Ruth told me in an interview that she had herself grown up immersed in choral singing, dance, and drama classes, and she liked to engage the ONCC children at the start of the warm-up section with physical exercises normally associated with drama. In addition, she pointed out that one of her first duties with the National Youth Choirs of Great Britain involved choreographing the choir’s movements within songs, and other elements of staging, and here, she was bringing these very elements into her direction of ONCC:

So the kind of acting elements and the drama . . . you see me sometimes throw things out, you know, I’d say, do this and do that. . . . Some of it is just managing them well in the rehearsal, giving them something different to do each time we sing it. (Ruth, personal communication, November 23, 2012)

For the semistaged performances of the Overworlds and Underworlds event, the children had to incorporate a basic choreography (largely involving facial and upper-body gesture) into their performance, and they had the added pressure of having to learn both music and movement to a professional standard in a relatively short time. In the lengthy dress rehearsal for this event, I observed John walking the children through the “choreography” of the Overworlds and Underworlds performance and was impressed to see children (who at that stage in the long and intense session were visibly quite tired) quickly pick up John’s intricate instructions on stage placement and movement, repertoire order, and facial and bodily gesture for individual songs. Significantly, in this and other rehearsals that I attended, the children nearly always exhibited intense behavioral engagement, always were visibly focused on the directors, and always were quick to pick up and internalize instruction.

Concept 2: “real-world” performance pressures

In the case of the Overworlds and Underworlds performance, the challenge of having to learn the work in a short time period was due to the fact that the commissioned composer had submitted his completed score for learning and rehearsal by the chorus quite late—according to John, only 6 weeks before the performance itself—meaning that this relatively inexperienced children’s chorus was under the same kind of deadline pressure normally experienced only by adult professional choirs. Their total focus and engagement in rehearsal paid off in the first performance, which I attended at the Leeds County Arcade, which was tight in ensemble and diction and which betrayed nervousness only to the experienced performer who might have observed the way the children were a little bit unsmiling and had their eyes “glued” to John’s physically expressive conducting for visual cues at technically difficult moments. In addition, the chorus was allowed to use word sheets for occasional numbers, something normally contraindicated in any kind of semistaged or staged vocal performance because it interrupts the “suspension of disbelief” necessary to sustain the audience’s sense of flow with the performance. Following that event, I attended several ONCC concerts and never saw the children use notation in performance again. When I interviewed him some months subsequently, John recalled the pressure ONCC had been under (and had overcome) for that event with some pride:

We’ve never had enough rehearsal time . . . [but] I was so proud, they nailed it. There wasn’t a duff performance! They came away from that and I thought they’d be exhausted and hating the music—but they loved it, they were so thrilled! (John, personal communication, November 23, 2012)

In an effective preparatory step into professional theatrical performance, the children thus were practicing and becoming comfortable with the concept of prescribed movement and the physical expressivity necessary for effective stage performance, within a supportive group learning context. Moreover, in public theatrical performances, such as Overworlds and Underworlds, the children were able to experience real-world performance pressure—having to learn a new work quickly to a professional standard—and they were able to benefit psychologically from the satisfaction of being able to master such challenges in their performances with ONCC.

The experience of immersion in a public, professional performance context—an experience perhaps intensified for children later participating in main-stage opera performances—offered an instance of situated learning not replicable in a standard school choir performing context. The effect of performance pressure (and the possibility of successfully overcoming such challenges) was thus another notable difference between the school choir experience and what ONCC could offer, and this was commented upon with some frequency by the children in questionnaire and interview data. It seemed that from the children’s perspective, a primary experiential difference in ONCC participation lay in the fact that in contrast to the “safe” learning environment of the school choir, ONCC provided the children with the experience of frequently performing relatively complex works in high-profile performance events. Thus, it offered an authentic experience of fully professional performance with all the demands that this entailed.

Children’s Perspectives Expressed in Questionnaire Responses

The questionnaires and subsequent interviews with the children offered insight into the children’s perspectives of their experience working and learning in ONCC in a way that could not be ascertained through observation alone. Concepts relating to children’s subjective experience as members of ONCC emerged in questionnaire responses, which were elaborated on later in interview responses, adding an extra layer of perspective to observation data. Observations of the children in ONCC rehearsals and performances already had suggested strong behavioral engagement with ONCC’s activities: Membership in ONCC was something that the children chose to do; they competed through audition for membership in ONCC and competed again through audition to take the next step of performing in Opera North main-stage productions. Administering questionnaires to the children and then interviewing a sample of the respondents confirmed the children’s musical ambitions, their immediate commitment to their ONCC activities, and their overall enthusiasm for being involved in a professional performance institution, like Opera North. It is worth recalling that completed questionnaires and interview data represent the views of only approximately one third of those invited to participate; nonetheless, the existing questionnaire and interview data in conjunction with observations yielded a fairly consistent picture of the ONCC children’s cultural world and where ONCC fit into that world.

Concept 3: children’s musical ambitions; ONCC as progression route

This leads on to an interesting tendency that emerged from the interview and questionnaire data: Many of the children chose to join ONCC in order to further existing vocal ability. It seemed that while ONCC certainly made drives to discover “raw talent” for the chorus via community engagement events in disadvantaged schools, membership in ONCC was not necessarily the primary source of the questionnaire respondents’ engagement with singing. A long-standing North of England popular choral tradition and a more recent rise in adolescent participation in musical theatre performance (Pitts, 2008, 2009) meant that almost inevitably, a majority of the children had some previous choral or musical training experience. In response to a question about musical participation at home or in school, 20 out of 22 respondents to the questionnaire indicated some previous experience singing in a school or community choir, of whom 18 answered positively that they had participated in a school choir, and 6 stated that they also or otherwise had experience singing in a church or community choir. In addition, eight respondents attended a performing arts school, and 15 had participated in a school musical production.

All the children’s replies to the question “Why did you join ONCC?” suggested that they already were engaged with singing prior to entry into ONCC and had talent recognized by schoolteachers, family, and friends. ONCC was for them a progression route rather than first contact with systematic vocal training. Answers to this question featured frequent references to seeking improvement on existing capability, for example, “I joined so I could improve on my singing” (FS, age 11), “Because I love singing and I wanted to do more” (HE, age 11), and “I like singing and I wanted to experience what it was like in a proper choir” (FH, age 10). ONCC thus fulfilled a clear need for advancement for these talented children, who showed frustration at the lack of pedagogical progression in their school and community choirs. Several interviewees emphasized in some detail that the educational provision in school and community choirs was inadequate for their needs:

My grandmother thought it was a good opportunity for me [to be in ONCC], because . . . instead of just being in a choir, a music choir, and just doing a couple of school concerts, I could actually get to sing with people that are good, like really good singers! (KR, age 12)

I was in . . . a young kids’ choir, and it was getting . . . a bit young for me because I’d been in there quite a few years. . . . We thought [ONCC] would be an opportunity and it sounds really good . . . just like learning the skill of opera, which would be really good for my future because I want to sing. (BP, age 14)

Concept 4: musician identity development

Many of these youngsters already manifested a clear musician identity, with 10 out of 22 questionnaire respondents expressing the desire to become a professional musician or singer when they grew up, with comments such as “I want singing to be my career when I’m older as well as acting” (AHJ, age 11) and “[ONCC] has given me a lot of amazing opportunities and chances to have a career in the musical world” (SP, age 11). Whether a musician identity was already in place before the children joined ONCC was not clear, even in those subsequently interviewed.

Recalling Davidson and Burland’s (2006) emphasis on the need of young adolescent musicians to mix with like-minded peers for endorsement of their emergent musician identity (p. 23) and Lave and Wenger’s (1991) notion of the community of practice, many of the questionnaire respondents made specific mention of the importance of forming friendships with like-minded peers as a motivation for joining and remaining with ONCC, for example, “I have always enjoyed singing and I wanted to meet other people wanting to do the same as me” (AS, age 12); “I’ve met new friends [in ONCC], my vocals have got better and I’ve learnt to sing in different languages!” (JR, age 11); and “There have been some amazing experiences . . . and I made lots of new friends” (G, age 11). As the preceding comments suggest, friendships in ONCC seemed to evolve from a sense of camaraderie and “bonding” over the intensity of the ONCC participation experiences.

Concept 5: children’s musical preferences

A further step in understanding the impact of the ONCC phenomenon was in ascertaining whether participation in ONCC had an influence on the children’s emerging musical preferences, that is, whether some level of acculturation had taken place. In considering the concept of acculturation, it is worth mentioning ethnicity, as this may have some bearing on subsequent observations of musical preference. ONCC documents did not indicate ethnic background in their summary of demographic information about ONCC members. From my own observations and informal discussions with Opera North education staff, it seemed that, regardless of socioeconomic difference, the majority of ONCC members were of White British ethnicity, and therefore, possibly an element of ethnic homogeneity was at play in statements of musical taste and preference. Certainly, a prior preference for musical theatre seemed to be an important determinant of ONCC membership: Some of the children’s preformed dispositions toward musical theatre seemed to have influenced their decision to join ONCC in the first place. Early musical enculturation for many of these children had involved listening to, attending, and performing in musical theatre shows in varying contexts. Musical theatre always has been a prominent facet of Leeds popular cultural life, and there was no shortage of opportunities for children to become involved with musicals in some way. In both the questionnaires and the interviews, frequent references were made to shows, such as Oliver!, The Sound of Music, and The Lion King, as repertoire that the children knew well, enjoyed, and in some cases had participated in, in performing arts school or amateur adult productions. Eight of the 22 questionnaire respondents regularly listened to musical theatre recordings at home, 17 had participated in a musical theatre performance (ranging from school musicals to semiprofessional contexts, such as pantomime), and 8 had attended performing arts schools. When asked to define what opera was, several of the children compared opera to musical theatre in order to explain it, for example, “I would say that it is similar to classical music; however, I think I would say opera is a type of musical which tells a story” (HS, age 12) and “In the words of the ‘In Crowd’ it’s ‘not cool.’ In the words of me, it is. It’s like musical theatre only with a different style” (SP, age 11). One child (BP, age 14) notably had experience performing in several Opera North productions but wanted to develop a career in musical theatre:

When I’m older, I want to work in musical theatre. Because I like going to see . . . the opera with my mum, and we’ve been to West Yorkshire Playhouse. I’ve been brought up with musicals so she just got me into doing it for when I’m older.

Concept 6: acculturation

This concept emerged across questionnaire responses and interview data. Questionnaire and interview responses suggested that overall, at this early stage in ONCC’s development, membership in ONCC was beginning to have an acculturative effect on musical taste for some children. In this respect, opera listening figured in the responses, although with less frequency than musical theatre listening: Six out of 22 said that they “now liked to listen to opera,” among other genres, in the home; and 12 had attended an opera performance with their families. Two children interviewed (HS, age 12, and MC, age 8) were particularly engaged with the concept of opera and described in an interview how they would very much like to become professional solo opera singers when they grew up. It is notable that both children had recently experienced performing in main-stage productions. HS in particular was very aware of the difficulties the opera career route would entail (she was taking private singing lessons from a member of Opera North Chorus), but she said she wanted to give it a try, despite the risks: “I don’t think I’d be able to, but when I’m an adult, I’d quite like to sing with Opera North. . . . I like singing solo, I’m quite confident doing it” (HS, age 12). In addition, HS was one of two children interviewed who had not attended a performing arts school or participated in musical theatre performance; for HS, stage and vocal training was all within the context of operatic training opportunities provided by Opera North.

Perspectives Expressed in Interviews Regarding Participation in Main-Stage Opera

Concept 7: peer modeling and peer support

The impact of being immersed in an “opera environment” did not necessarily have to involve performance in a main-stage opera, but some of the children did become very impressed with their older peers’ success in winning roles in operas. Davidson and Burland (2006) and others have discussed the positive effect of peer modeling on engagement, motivation, and persistence for performance learning in adolescents, while Walker (2007) has emphasized the importance of peer modeling and “horizontal acculturation,” or informal acculturative learning across a peer group. Bearing this in mind, I also noted that an increasing number of opportunities were arising in Opera North main-stage productions for children’s choral parts that ONCC members could audition for, and even for those who did not succeed in getting into an opera production, the awareness of ever-increasing possibilities in their immediate environment seemed to heighten engagement with opera.

A consideration of children’s vicarious engagement with other ONCC members’ performances in opera was something that I was able to explore in interviews. For example, FH, a 10-year-old, told me about how she loved to hear all about her best friend’s experiences performing and touring with several productions for which that friend had been chosen to perform (“She’s been on tour, and . . . it’s really interesting, finding out the experiences from her”). Some detailed insight into ONCC peer modeling and sibling support was offered by KM, a member of ONCC whose older sister had performed in several Opera North productions:

I’ve been to loads of operas, em . . . well, two things: because we really enjoy them, and my sister [LM], she’s been in quite a lot of them, like, she was in Otello, I think it was a month ago now. And she’s in Albert Herring at the moment, so . . . it was interesting, because . . . she acts differently at home, because my sister’s quite shy, but when she’s onstage, she just, like, lets herself go, and she looks like she’s really enjoying it! . . . Sometimes she has solos [and] I feel a bit nervous, in case she forgets her words, or something like that—but she never does! (KM, age 10)

Concept 8: the profound impact of direct participation in main-stage opera

Over the year of study, there was a gradual increase in involvement of ONCC children in main-stage Opera North productions; by late 2012/early 2013, this seemed to be playing a very significant part in engaging children in opera through the direct participation route. I first observed two ONCC children perform in Carousel in spring 2012, as part of a children’s chorus that at that stage largely comprised professional-level child performers from local private performing arts schools rather than ONCC children. By early 2013, a much greater proportion of ONCC children were succeeding via the audition route in obtaining places in main-stage productions: In the spring 2013 production of Verdi’s Otello, 14 of the 20-strong children’s chorus were ONCC members. Ruth commented with some pride on this fact in her interview with me:

Quite a few members have been in main-stage shows over the last 18 months since we’ve started, and I think that one of the main changes in that . . . children who would never otherwise have ever stood a chance against other children from stage schools [performing arts schools] and the like have got in over those children, so, at the moment . . . we advertise all opportunities for children, we advertise to our chorus. We say, put yourself forward to audition . . . so like this week, there was an Albert Herring call for boy soloists, so we actually pulled one of our kids out and . . . took him to sing to the director in the week. But we wouldn’t normally do that, we’d normally say, “This is the opportunity, would anyone like to come forward to it,” and we’ve seen increasing numbers of them coming forward to audition . . . more and more children [are] auditioning and more children are getting in.

Similarly, John spoke to me of how immersion in professional productions was an extraordinarily special opportunity for the children, engendering a deep engagement and a sense of professional responsibility that could lead to them “catching the acting bug,” so to speak:

What they get is the camaraderie, the sense that they are in something much bigger than anything they’ve ever been in before. They’re alongside professionals, they get to miss a day off school . . . they get to go on tour, they get to work with live orchestra, they’re in the theatre, they’re in the lights. The experience of it is wonderful for them. The trick is to get the right children into the right shows, so they’re never stretched so far that they aren’t capable of doing what they do very well.

Here, John evocatively observed the children’s experience of being in a professional community of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991). John had himself “apprenticed” as child chorister in Westminster Cathedral School and understood how judicious immersion in a meaningful “real-life” professional performance context could boost children’s self-confidence and sense of self-efficacy as young musicians while raising expectations among children and their families about what can be achieved when working in the performance arts.

A consciousness of belonging to a community of practice of high standing, in ONCC and more broadly within Opera North itself, initially was evident in the questionnaire data and subsequently emerged in more detail in the interview data. The children were clearly excited to be a part of that phenomenon. In both the questionnaires and in interviews, some children pointed out that they had joined ONCC because they wanted the challenge of being in a nationally recognized, semiprofessional children’s choir and wanted the opportunity to participate in high-profile professional performances:

If you’re in a school choir, you don’t get to do operas, Otello, stuff like that, travel around. . . . In fact it was my music teacher that got the letter and gave it to my grandma, about the opera. . . . My teacher were really proud of me; she kept on asking me questions about, how . . . if I like it and everything, and I’m like, “Yeah, of course!” (KR, age 12)

Some of the children’s most animated recollections were of the audition process for main-stage opera productions, which for some was an episode of experiential learning in which they realized the full extent of opera as an art form, involving more than just singing. The following narratives vividly illustrate two students’ experiences:

There was a lot of people there. . . . They got us to do acting. . . . I wasn’t expecting to do it, I know obviously there’s acting in opera, I just didn’t think there was going to be any acting . . . so, they’re asking us to . . . go up to people and hug them like they’re your best friend at your school, and I was thinking, “Oh, I don’t really know anyone here,” but . . . I tried to do it. . . . And they were asking us to walk around sadly and—but then we had to each sing a solo, like twice or three times; there was three lines of people, and the front and back, they got to sing the best thing, and then, I was in the middle, and we had to sing this really high thing, and I was like, “Oh, I sang really badly, I’m not going to get through,” but, and then, luckily, I did! (HS, age 12)

I auditioned for Albert Herring, and there’s, there’s this song, it’s not like, a big song, but it’s just a song where the children play around, and just sing the song while they’re throwing the ball . . . and we all had to, we learnt that when we were there, which was actually going to be in the show, but we, none of us thought it was going to be in the show, we just thought it was like a little warm-up or something. . . . But when my sister got it, she got the part, she sang the song in the show, and we were all like, “Oh! We sang that song for the audition!” But it sounds much better when you’re actually on the stage, you know what you’re doing, and you look at it, and there’s harmony, and it just looks really good. (KM, age 10)

Others offered insight into the experiential learning experience of being “thrown in the deep end” in an opera production and having to observe in a master–apprentice model to gain understanding of the production process:

The last [production] I was in, Joshua, we were on with the chorus, the adult chorus, and it was really good, because while we were waiting . . . it was really just fun . . . they could really help us, like if we had a question, they could just come and [we] could go and ask them and it really helps. . . . And it was really kind of interesting to see how they got there, and what they trained in, and they could give you tips and everything. (BP, age 14)

These comments provide an instance of how situated learning in an authentic professional context contributes to child participants’ engagement with opera. Formal admission into the adult operatic community of practice via the audition process, and the opportunity for socialization and informal learning from professional opera chorus singers, meant that children became involved in a process of legitimate peripheral participation in an opera production that helped enable their deep engagement with the genre.

Discussion

The findings suggest that participation in authentic professional operatic performance contexts was an important element in enabling deep engagement with opera, both vicariously and directly, in ONCC children. Musical participation and competence were highly valued by these children, and they were evidently proud to be involved as performers in such a prestigious company as Opera North. These children joined ONCC in order to further musical interests broadly based on vocal training but not necessarily directly related to opera. However, participation in ONCC broadened these children’s musical horizons, offering the chance to reconcile an existing appreciation for forms such as musical theatre with an open-minded approach to an unfamiliar form, opera. Responses by the children generally indicated that initially the main barrier to fully appreciating and participating in opera and professional choral concerts was a perception of technical difficulty (“high singing” and the use of foreign languages were mentioned frequently). However, several indicated that performing in professional contexts, such as high-profile concerts and main-stage productions, together with an effective formal vocal training had helped them overcome this issue. The situated learning aspect of performance training with ONCC was invaluable in this respect. Observation of the children’s engagement in rehearsal and performance, together with an analysis of perspectives expressed in the questionnaire responses and interviews, suggested that performance in high-profile events, especially main-stage opera, offered a unique performing experience that proved members’ ability to cope with performance nerves and challenging musical material in a way that could not be replicated in a standard school music performing context. The children overcame the psychological difficulty of public performance of this sort through their own hard work and strong social support provided by the community of practice of directors, interns, adult choir members, and senior artistic directors in ONCC and Opera North. The experience of performing successfully in public events, such as opera, was deeply engaging for some children to the point that they wished to make theatrical singing their careers.

ONCC offers opportunities for children with musical ability to obtain intensive training and work experience in an authentic professional context, but at the time of the study, age limitations did seem to pose a problem for the children. A primary concern for most of the children who participated in the study was that the ONCC program would end when they reached the age of 13, with no further progression route immediately in place. Once the children reached adolescence, it would have been hard to justify aesthetically their participation in onstage productions: They no longer would look or sound like children but would not have the technical maturity to join the adult chorus or perform adult roles. There was a chance that current deep engagement in opera and the stage arts might be effectively disrupted at a crucial time in the young adolescent musicians’ development (particularly for current 12- and 13-year-olds), and this concern was reflected in children’s questionnaire and interview responses.

However, by mid-2013, Opera North launched its Youth Company program for 13- to 19-year-olds (Opera North, 2013b). The Youth Company began as an intensive offshoot of the Opera North “Opus” program (now suspended), which facilitated experimentation in opera art forms (Opera North, 2013c). The Youth Company had a substantial focus on integrated theatre arts at the start: Members could opt to become part of the onstage chorus or part of the production and creative team, and experimentation across various theatre art forms was a key feature. In 2015, due to the popularity of the performance training aspect, the Youth Company program became the Opera North Youth Chorus (Opera North Youth Chorus, 2016). The instigation of this program for adolescents made possible the necessary step of acquainting Opera North Children’s Chorus “graduates” with continuing stagecraft and movement training while also continuing their choral work, essentials for a well-rounded professional operatic and musical theatre performer.

An alternative potential path locally for more experienced children and older adolescents—broached in the questionnaire responses by the children themselves—was the Leeds Youth Opera company for 12- to 25-year-olds, founded in 1971 and run under the aegis of Artsforms Education Leeds Music Service (Leeds Youth Opera, 2013). This company operates as a professional company for young voices, offering mainly experiential learning in a community of practice of peers and young artistic leaders. Some of the older ONCC members had taken the initiative in joining this program during my study, with one 13-year-old ONCC member overtly stating in his questionnaire response that he was already concurrently a member of Leeds Youth Opera at that time.

Implications and Future Research

Study of ONCC and similar apprenticeship-based performance arts programs contributes to an understanding of the importance of integrating high-quality formal pedagogy with situated learning experiences in the engagement, training, and development in the performing arts for children. The children’s opera chorus program provides an important alternative pathway into a performing arts career that rivals the junior conservatoire, the private performing arts school, and the British chorister school educational provision while maintaining inclusiveness. It offers the valuable opportunity for talented youngsters from all socioeconomic levels to become involved in a situated musical drama education in a publicly funded educational initiative. Opera chorus training not only contributes to a lifelong interest in opera and musical theatre but also opens a novel career pathway for children and adolescents from many backgrounds to further their interest and talent in performing arts practice.

ONCC is still only a recently established program, and the long-term impact of its work remains to be seen. Further steps for understanding the long-term impact of member children’s current engagement in ONCC (and other similar children’s opera chorus programs in a U.K. context) may be longitudinal research, returning to interview the children in several years’ time to understand what directions their musical careers and interests will have taken, and observing further developments in the ONCC program and the more recently developed Youth Chorus. An interesting case study might involve direct observation of a children’s chorus at work in an opera production (an option that was not open to me at the time that I studied ONCC). Comparative research with other recently formed U.K. children’s opera choruses and with the long-established North American children’s and youth opera programs could also offer useful perspectives on developmental paths and outcomes. Many research possibilities remain to be explored; the children’s opera chorus is a worthy and fertile new area of study in a U.K. context.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Supplemental Material

The appendix is available in the online version of the article at .

Notes

Author Biography

Rhoda Dullea is research affiliate and lecturer at the Department of Music, University College Cork, Ireland. Her research interests include cognitive processes in opera and ballet training, and the Kodály concept in music education.

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