For the first time ever, Opera Philadelphia has partnered with the University of Pennsylvania Department of Music and Drexel University’s ExCITe Center and Instructional Technology Group (ITG) to present a FREE online course for the East Coast Premiere of Jennifer Higdon and Gene Scheer’s Cold Mountain.

The four-week program examines the opera’s musical and dramatic structure, introduces and discusses the characters, and includes selections performed on video by Cold Mountain cast members and singers in Opera Philadelphia’s Emerging Artist program.

As part of the partnership between Opera Philadelphia and two of Philadelphia’s most prestigious universities, doctoral candidates from the University of Pennsylvania have written the program content which has been built by Drexel University’s ITG and hosted on Blackboard’s Open Education platform.

The goals of the course are to:

• Examine the opera’s musical and dramatic structure
• Introduce and discuss the characters
• Provide a modest understanding of Appalachian ecology and musicology
• Understand themes and events relevant to the opera
• Include information on the opera’s creation
• Offer multiple video and audio excerpts, interviews, and other multimedia to familiarize audiences with the creative teams vision

Enroll here >>