The Curse of MacCabbra Opera House
For Primary 5 to 7 pupils
Get your pupils singing and moving while learning! The Curse of MacCabbra Opera House gives P5 and P7s the opportunity to be involved in a special performance day, staging their own all-singing, all-dancing 30-minute show. Following a year of touring the project across primary schools in Scotland, we are now offering it as a digital package only.
‘It was brilliant to see many of our pupils who struggle in other areas of the curriculum, particularly socially and emotionally, shine and experience success.’
Blacklands Primary School, Kilwinning
How does it work?
Scottish Opera will provide online teaching resources for you to work through with your pupils in the run up to your performance date, including easy-to-follow audio and video teaching aids for the five songs in The Curse of MacCabbra Opera House, alongside fun curriculum-based learning activities which can be carried out in class, assigned as homework tasks or used for assessment purposes. The project is designed to tie in directly to the experiences and outcomes of A Curriculum for Excellence, giving pupils a greater understanding of the arts and creative industries than they might otherwise have, and helping children identify their talents and aspirations for the future. Learning activities will cover marketing and publicity, ticket pricing, letting children try their hand at creative writing and costume design, giving them an insight into all the different work that goes on behind the scenes to bring an opera to the stage, and helping build excitement for their fabulous performance day!
The Curse of MacCabbra Opera House
Music Alan Penman | Lyrics Johnny McKnight
Enter if you dare…It’s midnight and the ghosts of the ancient MacCabbra Opera House are rising from their graves to help struggling writers Compo Zerr and Libby Retto finish their final masterpiece. Can they polish it off before the audience arrives? Will the critics slay their creation? And more importantly, will the hapless duo make it safely through the night? A fabulously funny show for upper primary pupils, The Curse of MacCabbra Opera House is a cross-curricular gothic horror extravaganza that explores the work that goes into creating an opera, both on-stage and off.
Book Now
The Curse of The MacCabbra Opera House learning resources are available as a £100 digital package.
This package provides you with everything you need to make the project – and the performance day – a success. This includes:
- PDF of the lyrics, and full teaching pack
- Audio files including the full score, instrumental only backing tracks, and detailed teaching tracks which take you line by line through the music, which can be both downloaded and listened to online in playlists
- Videos which teach you the staging and dance moves for each song
- Videos to be used at the performance day, providing the backdrop and music for your show, including solo roles sung by Scottish Opera professionals
Questions? Contact Marissa Bradshaw at primaryschooltour@scottishopera.org.uk