Many conservatoires across the world offer masterclasses as part of the
education of their students, and many of those are open to the public, at low
ticket cost, or free of charge. The master class teachers are artists in the
field who have established their high level of ability beyond reasonable doubt;
in many cases, they may be beyond the peak of their own performance career,
allowing them time to expand into teaching. In this post I focus on opera
master classes, as I have attended a number of these as a member of the
audience. I expect that some of my observations can be transferred to
masterclasses for instrumentalists.
In terms of arrangement, a master might visit a conservatoire to work
with a selected number of students. Often, six students in a three-hour session
get up to 30 minutes to work with the master, on one or two pieces (song or
aria) they will have chosen and practiced with the piano accompanist
beforehand. In many cases, the accompanist is a fellow-student. There is
probably a very tough selection process for many students interested in being
involved in a master class, and students are on record emphasising the honour
it is for them to be selected, and how much they practice for the event. There
are exceptions here, of course: at one masterclass I attended, the master
concluded the session with one singer by asking bluntly (more saddened than
annoyed) whether he was prepared to admit that he had not put in many hours of
rehearsal with his accompanist, and the student did admit this. In other
scenarios, young singers would attend a residence of several days with a
master, again following a selection process. Those masterclasses are
predominantly private, with a public showcase of masterclass and concert
recital at the end of a week or two.
There is a certain etiquette around masterclasses: the student presents
the rehearsed song or aria uninterrupted, while the master listens and observes
closely. The master and audience applaud, then the master addresses aspects of
technique and interpretation, often together. At the end, the student sings
(part of) the song or aria again, and in all cases I have observed live or on
video, the singer’s performance is much better after having taken on board the
master’s advice.
Research into the masterclass has covered aspects of expertise,
apprenticeship, etiquette, embodied pedagogy, the master’s experience and
personal authority, the impact of the students’ experience, gender and level of
study on their evaluation of a masterclass, and general views of students about
their experience.
In a recent publication, “Towards a Theatre of the Heart” I explored the heart in relation to
spirituality in general terms, and then considered the relevance of the
insights of that exploration for theatre and performance practice. I coined the
phrase theatre of the heart, and
provided an analysis of its manifestations with reference to non-linear
performance (Baumgartner’s Catch me if you can: Euridice 2012 Reloaded and Mike Pearson/Mike Brookes Iliad), atmosphere (Peter Brook), love
(Zoo Indigo), and wisdom and age (Much
Ado About Nothing, with Vanessa Redgrave and James Earl Jones, 2013). The purpose of this
consideration was to re-assess the nature of the experiences of creating
theatre and of watching a performance in a way that does not seek to reduce it
to brain activities, but allows a wider perspective that in turn can be shown
not to rule out the dimension of brain activity as mutually exclusive.
From my experience of live masterclasses, they work best when the
master teaches with an open heart.
Bibliography
Atkinson, Paul, Richard Watermeyer & Sara Delamont.
2013. Expertise,
authority and embodied pedagogy: operatic masterclasses. British Journal of Sociology of Education 34 (4): 487-503.
Bærenholdt, Jørgen Ole, Jonathan Everts, Brynhild Granås, Nicky Gregson
& Ruth L. Healey. 2010. Performing Academic Practice: Using the Master
Class to Build Postgraduate Discursive Competences. Journal of
Geography in Higher Education 34 (2): 283-298. http://dro.dur.ac.uk/10408/1/10408.pdf
Creech, Andrea, Helena Gaunt,
Sue Hallam, Linnhe Robertson. 2009. Conservatoire
students’ Perceptions of Masterclasses. British Journal of Music Education 26 (3): 315-331. http://eprints.ioe.ac.uk/6276/1/Creech2009Conservatoire315.pdf
Hanken, Ingrid Maria and Marion
Long. Master classes – What do they
offer? Oslo: NMH-publikasjoner 2012:8. https://brage.bibsys.no/xmlui/bitstream/handle/11250/172653/Hanken_Long_2012.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
Lalli, Richard. 2004. Master
Plan. Opera News 69(1): 24-26.
Long, Marion,
Susan Hallam, Andrea Creech, Helena Gaunt, Linnhe Robertson. 2011. Do prior experience, gender, or level of study
influence music students’ perspectives on master classes? Psychology of Music 40(6): 683 – 699.
Long, Marion, Andrea Creech, Helena Gaunt, Susan Hallam, Linnhe
Robertson. 2012. Blast from the past: Conservatoire students’ experiences and
perceptions of public master classes. Musicae Scientiae 16 (3): 286 –
306.
Meyer-Dinkgräfe, Daniel. 2017. "Towards
a Theatre of the Heart", Annals of the University of Bucharest:
Philosophy Series 66 (1): 199-221.
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