Setting the bar higher, not lower

Before people started talking about the social divide (or of ballet for 5 euros or the young people’s pass), Danièle Fouache, former teacher of literature in a vocational high school, had the idea of taking kindergarten, primary school and junior and senior secondary school students in priority education areas to the Garnier and Bastille opera houses. The goal: to let them find out about opera from backstage and through the different jobs it offers. Opera is no longer seen as something reserved for “old rich people”, as Danièle puts it, but from behind the scenes, through such things as costumes, set, sound and lighting. The young people discover and try their hand at almost 150 jobs.

For the founder, the idea is not to train up future opera lovers. Ten months of school and opera is, first and foremost, an experience grounded in new encounters and hard work. Two years of work and workshops, several hours a month, outside school, far from the classroom, during which students discover totally new points of reference, working with their teachers and with professionals, with schoolmaster and master craftsman, and learn differently. Finally, in the words of Danièle Fouache, “they learned to say hello, hold the door for someone and respect other people’s work. They become citizens.” At the same time, they also learn how to take possession of a space hitherto denied to them or seen as out of their reach.

The initiative has expanded. Today, almost 900 students from schools in three school districts (Créteil, Paris, Versailles) are enrolled for two consecutive years in the introduction to opera program. They attend performances and classes in theatre practice, choreography, choir singing and, more recently, playing music. A performance to present their work is scheduled for June 2010.