FEDORA - Teatro Sociale di Como - AsLiCo Roadshow 2023

Teatro Sociale di Como - AsLiCo - Roadshow 2023 Opera white © Alessia Santambrogio i

Teatro Sociale di Como - AsLiCo Roadshow 2023

Details

10 July 2023

Como / Italy

Platform Members, Roadshow

Opera white: a new didactic-musical format for the Community of institutionalised elderlies

On 10 and 11 July 2023, Teatro Sociale di Como - AsLiCo had its first edition of Opera White. Opera White is the latest format from the Opera Education Department of the opera house: a didactic-musical path for institutionalised elderly people with the aim of enhancing opera as a tool to overcome loneliness within the Residential Care Homes (RCH), offering socialisation activities among the elderly and inclusion with the community in which they live. Through the project, guests learn some choral songs they can then sing during the final performance, thus making their participation essential to the very success of the play and also inviting them to make use of their mnemonic and learning skills.

The idea of Opera white was born during the first pandemic wave of 2020, from the desire to build new opportunities for meeting and care within the RCH, following the difficult period of forced isolation. This element leads the show to distinguish itself from the other Opera Education projects, leading the theatre to its audience and not vice versa, in order to promote the valorisation of care and nursing spaces, which for a long time have been deprived of new opportunities for socialising.

This first year’s opera title was Flauto Magico, Die Zauberflöte, in a simplified cut for an actor, a pianist and three singers. All artists engaged actively with the spectators and guests during the performance, adapting the plot to add some moments of interaction to make the target audience more comfortable and involved.

This was also a chance for emerging directors, actors, musicians and singers to face different artistic challenges, performing in places other than the stage with no scenery or props, in close contact with a more fragile and not always attentive and receptive audience, which needs great energy to get involved and stay engaged. The opera singers have been selected among the finalists of the AsLiCo Competition, who were not awarded the prize for the main roles in the productions but whom AsLiCo deemed suitable and deserving for an important new artistic project for the community.

Find out more about Opera White below.