Rising star adds glamour to workshop

SINGING SENSATION: Emily Scott, who has been singing as long as she can remember, has come direct from the production of Don Giovanni at St James theatre, to sing for MIS students at the school as part of the New Zealand Opera visit to the school.

Emerging star of New Zealand opera Emily Scott sent vocal scales rippling among classmates in the playground at Masterton Intermediate School yesterday.

Ms Scott was visiting the school as a member of the New Zealand Opera creative team, which spent three days working with Year 7 and 8 pupils on a visual project based around the Cinderella story, NZ Opera education assistant Anna Jewitt said.

The students were "applying their imaginations to practical design" using the opera tale with tutors that included renowned Kiwi costume designer Elizabeth Whiting and New Zealand opera set designer Jan Ubels.

The Design Creative Workshop invited students to learn about the elements involved in design for the opera stage over the three days of classes and to ultimately construct their own set model, props and costume designs, which were to go on display at the Masterton District Library at the completion of the workshop yesterday.

The sessions were funded through the Wellington Regional Amenities Fund and Ms Scott joined the class as an added bonus to the three-day workshop and came direct from the NZ Opera season of Don Giovanni that closes today at the St James Theatre in the capital.

The 25-year-old soprano began in classical music three years ago and became enamoured of the emotion, vitality and depth of the art form, she said.

She had been singing as long as she can remember and had previously performed in musical theatre, also singing jazz and a duet with Jason Kerrison of Op Shop, and capturing many awards, including several from the North Shore Performing Arts Society.

Ms Scott had decided to study toward a science degree in her hometown of Auckland for a time, she said, but while considering a change to performance art study in Australia, had turned to classical singing on the recommendation of mentors Sheila and Nick Richardson.

"Opera is a very, very recent turn-around for me. Musical theatre was my big thing and jazz, pop - anything I could sing," she said.

"I do listen to opera a lot now but I also love Aerosmith, anything from Elton John, the Bee Gees, Eagles, Spice Girls, Britney Spears. Music is a language everybody understands, that can always move you."

The Mozart production in the capital came after her operatic debut in La Traviata in Auckland earlier this year, after she captured a Freemasons Dame Malvina Major Emerging Artists internship that gave her the opportunity to work alongside professionals in the industry as part of NZ Opera.

Emerging artists were offered supporting or understudy roles, undertaking concert engagements and becoming part of the NZ Opera company chorus. Internship director John Rosser described Ms Scott as "a soprano of exciting potential".

"In opera there is a lot of luck involved - right place at the right time - and it just depends on what people are looking for as well. If things don't line up on the day, you have to wait on another chance at another time," Ms Scott said.

Ms Scott said she had earlier worked in similar classes with young students at East Tamaki College and Manukau Technical Institute and found "it really is so much fun, especially with kids who have no previous connection or experience of opera".

MIS teacher Ellie Francis said the Cinderella project had been supremely rewarding for the 20 classmates.

"Overall, It was a really great experience. The students have loved the hands-on learning involved and showed some awesome creativity in their adaptions of the opera story ... It was a great offer from the New Zealand Opera to run the workshop and it was great to see it spark an interest for students."