Opera on the curriculum in Brislington

The bell for a new lesson beeps along an upstairs corridor at Oasis Academy Brislington. In one of the art classrooms, with pencil drawings of Mexican sugar skulls and exhibition posters stuck up on almost every available bit of wall space, a class of Year 7s look on as Clare Daly stands up in front of the whiteboard and begins to brightly sing a snippet of opera, accompanied by a giggling chorus a few rows back comprised of Bristol Opera chairman Susan Weaver and the school’s assistant principal, Ina Goldberg.

Today is the class’ second lesson with Bristol Opera, who have been using one of the unused classrooms downstairs as their scenic workshop for the past two years. After a short talk from director Graham Billing about the Ancient Greeks (Bristol Opera’s forthcoming production is Offenbach’s La Belle Helene, on at the 1532 Performing Arts Theatre from April 11-13), the class rush excitedly down through the corridors to see the set that they will be helping to paint.

“The workshop space at The Bottleyard Studios in Hengrove that we used to use for our sets was no longer available to us and we needed to find Bristol Opera a new home,” explains Susan Weaver, a member of the opera for almost 45 years.

The Oasis Academy connection came through Ina Goldberg, who has sung with Bristol Opera for almost five years and been a teacher at the school for more than 14. With spare facilities and several other artists in residence set up in the school – their way of fighting against funding cuts that have hit creative subjects hard – Bristol Opera was invited in.

Hassan painting the scenery

“During the two years we have involved some of the Year 7 and 8 pupils in the construction and the painting of our sets,” Susan says. “Some of those pupils were invited to come along to our opening performance last year when we performed Der Freischütz. For some of them, it was their first experience of live theatre, and they could also see their own handiwork on stage under the lighting. I think they really enjoyed it.”

The students sit cross-legged on the floor under a big banner of Martin Luther King Jr, while singer Clare – who also designs the sets for Bristol Opera – explains what they will be painting today.

On the floor is one of half-a-dozen semi-circular columns that will be made to look like a marble temple, plus the pediment that will sit atop them. Clare demonstrates a sponging technique with several grey paints and the students put on aprons and get stuck in.

“The way that funding cuts have affected the school are that certain subjects cannot run,” says Ina Goldberg. “A specialist drama teacher will not necessarily have enough curriculum time to fill their timetable. So you have to be very creative with how you then do those kind of areas of the curriculum, and while our English teachers can deliver some drama, we haven’t got a specialist who would then nurture that subject to GCSE and A Level. It’s those one-person subjects that suffer, and we suffer from that.”

Bristol Opera’s scenery workshop at Oasis Academy Brislington

While having Bristol Opera in the building isn’t a direct replacement for these specialist teachers, it is allowing Oasis Academy Brislington to broaden the range of creative subjects their students try, and the people they meet during their school day.

“It’s a win-win situation for everybody,” Ina says. “The students are loving it. Just this morning, watching the students, you could see that they were really interested. That has been brilliant.”

The bell goes again for lunchtime, but the children don’t immediately grab their bags to join their friends, who are streaming into the corridors, voices rising into the atrium. Instead, they finish their marble veins, standing back to admire the effect.

“I’ve never done anything like this before,” says 11-year-old Hassan, who has been working on the pediment. He says he didn’t know what opera was before his class’ first lesson last week. “It feels pretty fun to do something new.”

And how do the students feel about their work being seen on stage when the production is ready in April? “It’s fun that something I know I’ve done is going to be seen by different people and used, so it’s really cool to have done this,” says Isabella, also 11. “Art lessons are fun. If we didn’t do art at school I’d feel a bit disappointed because I like having a variety of lessons, not just writing.”

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