Youth opera from and performed by children and young people

With the help of a project extending over several years, the project partner is providing children and young people in the Winterthur region with access to classical music and giving them the opportunity to be involved in the process of creating an opera. The project encompasses three musical stories:
The story of “Tino Flautino and the magic melody” will be brought to the primary schools in the region by the musicians of the Musikkollegium Winterthur as part of a series of workshops. Over 1‘000 children will be able to follow Tino’s musical adventure.
In workshops for teaching music composition, schoolchildren develop the music for the Opera “Fealan” themselves. 350 children are involved in the production which will stage three performances before large audiences. Other school classes will attend the rehearsals and performances.
With the third story the Musikkollegium is going one step further and allowing 750 children and young people to create an entire opera from start to finish. They will compose the music together with professionals and write the libretto for “The forbidden land”. They will be inspired by a story written previously by pupils in Lebanon. The costumes, the stage set and the sequence of the opera will be designed in various workshops by the children involved, themselves. Here again, the rehearsals will be attended by an additional 3’000 school children. A documentary film is being created on each of the two operas “Fealan” and “The forbidden land”.