Situated Learning in Opera Training: A Case Study of Young Artists’ Experiential Learning in a Professional Opera Production

Abstract

Developing expertise in opera theatre performance involves the learning and combining of multiple performance skills that are continually honed over a lifetime of professional participation in an operatic community of practice. Drawing on ideas about embodied cognition and situated learning, this study investigates the experiential learning that takes place among young opera singers in the context of a youth opera company production. Doing so offers a perspective into expertise development among early-career practitioners in this complex, multi-disciplinary theatrical art. This study takes the form of a qualitative case study of performance learning and rehearsal techniques in Irish Youth Opera’s 2014 production of Britten’s Rape of Lucretia. Observation of rehearsals and performances, and semi-structured interviews with participants in the production reveal the evolution of a holistic, multi-disciplinary performance expertise among young performers on the brink of a professional operatic career.

Keywords:

• situated learning
• embodied cognition
• opera training