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For this research, I have chosen to observe the Butler Opera Ensemble working during one semester. The ensemble is composed of undergraduate students, freshmen to seniors. The challenge of this class was to learn and perform the short opera “Cinderella” by the French composer Isabelle Aboulker. I am not totally foreign to the project, since I worked on translating the narrative part of the work. Being an opera singer myself, the study was a major personal interest and I hope that I will, through this analys
The data was captured on video every Tuesday of the Fall 2009 semester. The musical rehearsals took place around the piano and were quite static, therefore rather easy to capture. On the other hand, I had difficulty getting a general picture of the staging classes: since the director was also the conductor, he tended to face the “stage,” while the students were facing him, making it difficult for me to record the expressions of both the teacher and the students. I finally adopted a lateral position.