Summer Performance Intensive

Vocal Explosion

Vocal Explosion is an intensive summer vocal music and drama workshop for Boston-area teens, funded in part through the Boston Foundation’s My Summer in the City initiative, which provides safe and engaging afternoon and evening activities for Boston’s young people.  During the month of August, 2010,  using the music of Puccini’s La Boheme as a springboard, teen performers worked alongside professional opera singers at Roxbury Center for Arts at Hibernian Hall to create  Bohemian Faces, an exciting, intergenerational production that wove together music from a variety of sources, from classical repertoire to the American and South African Civil Rights Movements.

To foster the students’ continued engagement in the arts, the Vocal Explosion cast are invited to attend Opera Boston’s dress rehearsals during the season.

Opera Factory

Opera Boston’s teen summer programming began in 2008, when Opera Boston and Cloud Place piloted The Opera Factory, during which  Boston area teens designed, constructed, and performed a new operatic presentation inspired by Bizet’s Carmen under the guidance of seasoned stage professionals.  In addition to the opera, the students created a multimedia presentation, the Opera Factory Tour, a three-floor, interactive exhibit which documented the steps in the production’s creative process.