Puccini at School
The educational activities that the Fondazione Giacomo Puccini has been proposing to schools for several years now aims to introduce students to the life and work of Giacomo Puccini, to stimulate interest and curiosity in this famous composer of Italian musical history.
The project also aims to introduce students to melodrama as a type of performance. In fact, opera is not one of the musical genres taken into consideration by the new generations, indeed for many it is an unknown form of performance.
Our educational proposal aims to promote and foster the educational action of teachers, making them aware of the importance of educating students in musical theatre, in opera as an overall work of different talents and professional skills: musicians, literary writers, directors, choreographers, set designers, costume designers, artisans, tailors, lighting designers, sound engineers.
Because of its complexity, the work favours the possibility of interdisciplinary approaches between the various disciplines: primarily music education, but also literature, history, foreign languages and cultures, and art education.
The proposed educational paths are subdivided by order and grade of school, with different peculiarities to involve pupils of all age groups.
Each itinerary is always combined with a guided tour of the Puccini Museum – Birthplace, organised by the Museum staff who also follow the various educational paths.
In addition to the museum and the Foundation’s location (Casermetta San Colombano, on the city walls), meetings can also be held in the Schools.
Applications for the courses must be received by filling in the booking form (one for each participating class) and sending it by email to didattica@puccinimuseum.it
For information: tel. 0583 584028
Educational Paths
Guided tour
For pupils of all school levels.
Guided tour of the House Museum to discover the places where Giacomo Puccini lived, his life and his works.
The guided tour is available in various languages and the content is adapted to the age of the students.
Duration of visit: approx. 1 hour
Cost: € 4.00
I play with Giacomo. In his house I search, guess, draw and those
For primary school pupils.
Guided tour of the museum through games and quizzes involving the children during the museum tour. Each child will be given a small booklet (two levels of difficulty depending on the class attended) to fill in during the museum visit. On their return to school, each child can design their own personal and original cover.
The tour is also available in English.
Duration: approx. 1 ½ hours
Cost: € 7.00 (including teaching materials)
He who tells lies... gets into trouble: Gianni Schicchi
For primary school pupils.
Giacomo Puccini’s ‘Unica opera buffa’ is perhaps the most suitable for introducing children to the opera genre, both because of the sometimes comic subject matter (which also offers a moral at the end) and because of the short duration and simplicity of the plot. After a brief introduction on opera, the story will move on to the actual story, with the viewing and listening to some moments of the opera until the meeting with Gianni Schicchi in person inside the museum.
Duration: approx. 2 hours
Cost: € 7.00
Madama Butterfly, the butterfly of Japan
For primary school pupils (classes III, IV and V) and secondary school pupils (class I).
Madama Butterfly for its tragic content is a difficult opera to tell children about, but it can be an excuse to use opera as a means of introducing them to countries and cultures other than our own.
Once upon a time there was a butterfly who lived in a house made of rice paper, surrounded by a beautiful garden with a pond with a small bridge and many cherry trees in blossom. The butterfly is actually a beautiful maiden named Cio-Cio-San who will introduce us to her country and teach us how to make an original fan.
Duration: approx. 2 hours
Cost: € 7.00 (including workshop materials)
The Puccini costume
For primary school pupils (classes III, IV and V) and secondary school pupils (classes I).
The tour includes a visit to the Puccini Museum, with particular attention to the opera costumes on display in the rooms, to identify the characteristics of a costume designed for opera. This will be followed by a workshop involving the creation of a costume figurine of one of the many characters from Puccini’s operas. Using colours, fabrics, ribbons and buttons, the children will become costume designers of a new imaginary production.
Before the visit, a power point presentation highlights the importance of the costume in characterising the character with examples of traditional and modern costumes. During the visit, the costumes on display in the museum are then shown up close. The children then have to make the costume figurine of a Puccini character of their choice.
Duration: approx. 2 hours
Cost: € 7.00 (including workshop materials)
Opera in the billboard
For secondary school pupils.
The aim is to create a panel that uses graphic elements to provide the main information about the Opera on the bill in an immediate way: first performance, characters, plot summary, most famous arias, special effects, costumes, main scenes, anecdotes.
For this path, we took our graphic inspiration from the exhibition Opera: Passion, Power and Politics, held at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. The aim is to represent, with a few short texts and the imagery and graphics, an opera in the limited space of a billboard. To browse: https://www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/opera.
The course includes a meeting in which all information about the work, directions and basic materials for making the panel will be provided.
Duration: approx. 2 hours (plus time for making the poster at school)
Cost: € 7.00
Guide for a day
For secondary school pupils (grade I (class 3) and grade II).
Getting to know Giacomo Puccini through a tour of the house where he was born, deepening their knowledge of the biography of the period in which he lived in that house, of the Puccini dynasty and of the relics and documents preserved there.
With the support of the museum staff, the students will receive a text on the museum tour and will participate in two guided tours, with two different guides, so that they will also hear two different ways of dealing with visitors. They will then ‘train’ themselves to become ‘Guides for a Day’.
In fact, the route involves the students trying their hand at a guided tour with a real audience, consisting of their own parents, or other students or visitors to the museum.
Duration: 4 hours (2 meetings/visits of the museum)
Cost: € 7.00
Giacomo Puccini and the opera house
For secondary school pupils.
Opera is certainly not one of the musical genres taken up by the new generations, for many it is an unknown, indeed boring, form of entertainment for old people.
The aim of the course is therefore to bring the students closer to opera, through the figure of Giacomo Puccini, a visit to the House Museum and the Teatro del Giglio, and to the world of melodrama, in order to understand the genesis of an opera, its scenic realisation, the professional figures who work on it, and the importance that opera theatre has in spreading Italian culture throughout the world and in the social and economic fabric.
Duration approximately 5 hours to be held in one or two sessions:
– guided tour of the Puccini Museum – biographical narration through the museum – approx. 1 hour
– meeting with power point presentations, video, debate with students – 1 hour and a half;
– guided tour of the Teatro del Giglio – the venue and the professionals who work there –
1 hour and a half;
Cost: € 9.00 + € 2.00 guided tour of the Theatre
OR
In lieu of the theatre visit the possibility of attending the dress rehearsal of La bohème on Thursday 19 October at 4 pm, ticket cost € 7.00
Puccini and Lucca
For secondary school pupils in grades I (class III) and II.
A true itinerary aimed at gaining a deeper understanding of Giacomo Puccini’s ties with his native city. It begins with a visit to the museum and continues with a walk through the historic centre to discover places, people and events linked to the composer’s life and work.
Students will be involved in the itinerary thanks to the APP that the Puccini Museum has created for visiting Puccini’s places in the area.
Duration: approx. 3 hours
Cost: € 9,00
