Brigham Young University · School of Music

A Child’sSusan Kenney Heather Young

Guide to the OperaHelp, Help, the Globolinks!Amahl and the Night VisitorsGian Carlo Menotti

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Make Your Own

Opera is a story that is turned into a play. Each character in the play sings rather than talks. The first opera was written more than 500 years ago in Italy. Today operas are written and performed

all over the world. Many children have written operas and you can, too. Just follow these steps.

Opera Create or choose a story.

Use a story you already

know, or make one up.

Turn your story into a play or libretto. Determine who the characters are in the story and give them words to say.

Decide if you want an orchestra. Instruments can add to the story. Choose sounds from around your house. A pot lid makes a great gong, a wooden spoon on a plastic bowl for a drum, a baby rattle for a castanet. Menotti used a bus horn, a train whistle, and a school bell in addition to other instruments.

Make up music to go with the words in the play. You can use a tune from songs you already know or make up tunes. You could even use Menotti’s tune printed in this program and make new words.

Choose people to be in your opera and help them learn their parts.

Practice! Practice! Practice!

Decide if you want costumes or scenery. If you do, make it a family project using adults to help.

Organize your story into sections

or scenes. Think about how it

begins, what happens in the middle, and how it ends.1 2

3 4576

Amahl and the Night Visitors / Help, Help, the Globolinks! 3

Madame Euterpova and the other teachers reach the stranded students! HELP

4

7

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Which instruments do you hear?

Amahl and the Night Visitors / Help, Help, the Globolinks! 5

Sometimes, music can be made from instruments found in your home.

Explore the sounds that every day objects can make: running water pots and pans

rubber bands silverware crunchy leaves bottles & jars cardboard boxes ... or make up your own!

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Create your very ownGlobolink!

Amahl and the Night Visitors / Help, Help, the Globolinks! 7

After Menotti composed this beautiful melody, he used it over and over again. Each time this melody is sung, the words change.

Tony the bus driver sings it first, then the children sing it and finally, Emily sings it.

Listen for the melody each time it is performed in the opera. You may want to sing Menotti’s beautiful melody when you go home and then add your own words.

Globolink!

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“Farewell, my friends, farewell”

—Emily

Check out the following website to “Design Your Own Opera!” An online interactive classical music education game for children parents and teachers, based on the opera Hansel and Gretel by Humberdinck.www.classicalkusc.org/kids/opera/