Opera History Presentation (BRIEF!) with an Oral Review, and a Written Quiz

This PowerPoint and the Assessments herein attempt to make learning about Opera History fun and interesting by engaging students with fun animation, colorful slides and read-along pages that can be printed or simply projected so you can read it aloud to the students, or they can read it aloud from a screen to each other.

It gives a very brief history of the beginning of opera, explains what Overture, Recitative and Arias are, talks a bit about basics of opera plots and voice parts. There is also an explanation of the differences between Opera, Operetta and Musicals.

Pirates of Penzance is mentioned because the music in it is so much fun and my students use it a lot in my class.

At the end of the PowerPoint, there are four animated slides that act as an Oral Review that can be used as an Assessment, or just a review before giving them the written quiz.

The written quiz on the back asks 12 questions (11 multiple choice, and one matching terminology to definitions of voice parts) and Question 13 asks them to tell what kind of performance they would want to be in and why: Opera, Operetta, or Musical.

This quiz is written to be printed double sided, and then cut in half down the middle to save you paper!

I usually read through the informational slides and go through the Review pages at the end during one class, and then do it again in the second class, and then give the students the written Quiz.