Metamorphoses

Planning/Implementation: Rafi Company

Scientific associate: Sophia Kompotiati

How do we feel when we suddenly look at something we already know in a totally different way? When our perspective of that which is already familiar to us changes?

Through the programme Metamorphoses, curated by the Rafi Music Theatre Company on its first collaboration with the GNO Learning & Participation Department, children of all ages explore the mysteries/hidden secrets of opera, those things that are not obvious about it, sneaking through the cracks of the notes and words to illuminate them in a different way. Through activities that trigger imagination and creativity, workshops, and meetings/discussions with important guest from diverse fields, participants will have the chance to sharpen their eyes and thinking and shed light upon that which is different and unexpected, expanding their artistic horizons through the contact with a groundbreaking art that timelessly praises human freedom.

Don Giovanni

October 2022

An introduction to directing workshop for teenagers

We direct an aria, we explore our creative freedom and the possibilities of different approaches to artistic creation. Mozart’s music, with its timeless power, carries Don Giovanni’s legend across the centuries. Performances, legends, and original stagings have marked its contact with the audience of our time. But how would a teenager in the time of the MeToo movement direct it? How would they approach the libretto and Mozart’s music? Teenagers converse with university professors specialised in gender and identity issues, singers and GNO set designers to present their own version of the opera through DIY music and visual techniques.

Age group: 11-15

Dates & Time: 22 October, 17.00 – 19.00 & 23 October 2022, 17.00 – 20.00

Speakers: Irene Avramopoulou (assistant professor at the Department of Social Anthropology, Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences), Chrysa Malliamani (opera singer, soprano)

Don Quijote

November 2022

Movement workshop for children

How can we transform ourselves into a hero or a windmill? Can we dance revolution? Can we turn our body into a fairy tale, an adventure, and talk about the value of heroism and revolt without speaking? How can art become a revolutionary act? A workshop for children who transform into Don Quijotes and windmills, reshaping the power and beauty of dreams, imagination and revolution through dance, music and physical theatre.

Age group: 9-12

Dates & time: 26 & 27 November 2022, 17.00 – 19.00

Speakers: TBD

Les contes d’ Hoffmann

December 2022

“Musical” sculpting workshop

Quite often in the world of opera we should not believe our own eyes! Through the power of singing and music and the theater’s technical possibilities, everything seems magical! How can we transform our own selves? Using the famous Doll Aria from Les contes d’ Hoffmann as a vehicle, we attempt to become dolls ourselves, but also sculptors and magicians through crash courses of operatic magic!

Age group: 6-9

Dates & time: 17 & 18 December 2022, 17.00 – 19.00

Speakers: TBD

Falstaff

January 2023

Creative writing workshop – how to write a miniature-libretto

Giuseppe Verdi and his librettist Arrigo Boito offered a reading of Shakespeare’s masterpiece as a hymn to love, flooded with the colours of the Italian Renaissance, but also darker and more atmospheric than the original. Participants will converse with activists and members of the LGTBQ community about the facets of love in 2022, as well as with the protagonists of this year’s GNO production of the same title in order to draw inspiration and pen their own miniature-librettos.

Age group: 13-15

Days & time: 28 January 2022, 17.00 – 19.00 & 29 January 2023, 17.00-20.00

Speakers: Anna Kouroupou (director of Red Umbrella Athens)

Werther

April 2023

Music letters writing workshop for teenagers

How do we write love letters? Do people write love letters in our time? Starting from wondering about the ways love letters via digital applications are different from 19th-century love letters, this workshop urges teenagers to replace pen and keyboard with notes, as a means of expression.

Age group: 13-15

Dates & time: 1 April, 17.00-19.00 & 2 April 2023, 17.00-20.00

Speakers: TBD

Médée

April 2023

Sound and vocal art workshop for teenagers

The workshop revolves around the most basic and common, yet also most moving musical instrument: the human voice. Par excellence performers of emotions – joy, sadness, anger, hope –, opera singers use notes, their throats and bodies, to express all that can’t be said in any other way. The workshop will attempt at a first introduction to precisely these techniques and methods.

Age group: 13-15

Dates & time: 29 April, 17.00-19.00 & 30 April 2023, 17.00-20.00

Speakers: TBD

Madama Butterfly

June 2023

Music and visual arts workshop for children

How is it to be seen as a foreigner? What does foreign mean? What does it feel like to write

stories, create worlds through the eyes of different cultures? Going through the current

intercultural reality, children will converse with young migrants living in Greece and will

work together with visual artist Filippos Vasileiou. They will transform scenes from the opera

Madama Butterfly, building masks, costumes and stage props with references on diverse

cultures, creating their own unique visual version of the work.