01. The work
Kornilios Selamsis’ Offenbach’s La belle Hélène. A modern opera, a blend of two musical ventures, aiming at introducing opera as a genre to the secondary education school community.
02. The Beautiful Helen
So who is the Beautiful Helen and how many different versions of her have we witnessed to this date? How could a woman have caused a ten-year-long war?
03. What is opera?
Explore the multi-dimensional world of opera with our rich audiovisual material, interactive applications and original texts written by music historian Artemis Ignatidou. What is the past, present and future of opera and music theatre?
04. Make your own opera
What are the different elements composing an opera? Explore some ideas on how you could experiment with creating an opera or music theatre work, using the materials, means, people and venues available to you.
;)
05. Helen of Solidarity
How could the Trojan War have been averted? Play the videogame Helen of Solidarity and become a peace ambassador.
06. FAQs
If you are a secondary education teacher and you wish to programme a screening of the film in your school, you can fill in the online form you will find in the section The work in the chapter Watch the film.
Opera Box is aimed at educators with different subject specialties. The interdisciplinary design of its content offers useful educational material to teachers of Ancient Greek, Art, History, Social and Civic Education, Music, Modern Greek Language and Literature, Information & Technology.
The sections of Opera Box differ in terms of length and volume. The minimum time to be spent on each section is estimated to be two teaching hours.
Opera Box is not exclusively aimed at educators. It has been designed in such a way so that each user can freely browse through its interactive digital setting, gaining useful knowledge about opera and music theatre.
Through the website of the GNO (https://www.nationalopera.gr/) and the social media of the GNO Learning & Participation Department (https://www.facebook.com/educationnationalopera / https://www.instagram.com/gnoeducation/ )
Select the option Helen of Solidarity from the main menu and you will be led to the video game environment.
In the sections What is opera? And The Helen of Troy each chapter ends with one or more suggested educational activities. These activities involve different areas of expertise and at the beginning of each activity you can see the subjects it covers, its suggested teaching duration and educational objectives. Moreover, at the end of each chapter in the section Make your own opera you will find two activities, with which you can make the material needed to create a new work of the performing arts.
Opera Interactively Into Schools is a groundbreaking educational programme for secondary education schools, which aims at familiarizing pupils with the art of opera. It is the continuation of an educational programme that had been implemented by the Greek National Opera in primary schools from 2012 to 2015. The programme is co-funded by the European Union – European Social Fund (ESF) and National Resources NSRF 2014-2020 through the Operational Programme “Human Resources Development, Education and Lifelong Learning”.
You can download the instructions on how to use Opera Box in digital format by clicking on the following link: Οδηγίες χρήσης προς εκπαιδευτικούς
You can attend live opera and music theatre performances at the Greek National Opera in the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center. Below, you can find the artistic programming for the 2023/24 season: https://www.nationalopera.gr/. Moreover, you can watch opera productions remotely through GNO TV, the new online TV channel of the Greek National Opera. You can browse the GNO TV programme here: https://tv.nationalopera.gr/
You can visit the Virtual Educational Museum of the Greek National Opera to get acquainted with the world of the only Greek Opera House, from its foundation to this date: https://virtualmuseum.nationalopera.gr/
