CHILDREN’S OPERA: A MEANS OF AESTHETIC EDUCATION OR A RELIC?

Abstract

The article examines the problems of the functioning of children’s musical theaters and attempts to determine their role in the aesthetic education of children. Almost all children, regardless of age, love to sing, dance, and improvise, because creativity is a natural trait of children. Therefore, to reveal the talents and capabilities of children, it is necessary for them to try their hand at various types of artistic and aesthetic activities. Participation in opera productions of a musical and theatrical group provides enormous opportunities for the first creative manifestations of children. Under skillful guidance, a spark of creativity will ignite in a child, she will feel the joy of knowledge, realize herself as a person, and discover the beautiful in art and life.However, children’s opera groups still remain a rarity. It is usually very difficult for the head of such a theater to solve all organizational and creative issues personally. It is necessary to think over the concept of the future performance, select child performers. Providing the performance with scenery and costumes is also not an easy task. But those who watched with what enthusiasm the children participate in rehearsals and performances of the exemplary children’s musical theater "Dzvinochok", which until recently operated in the Sumy Palace of Children and Youth, could see that the production of children’s operas is worth the hard work. Especially since the young artists performed not for themselves, but in front of the general public. The audience, both children and adults, always sincerely welcomed the young artists of the "Dzvinochok" theater with loud applause. Thus, one can agree with the opinion that children’s opera is a powerful means of aesthetic education of children. Therefore, it is necessary to combine the efforts of scientists, teachers and theater figures in creating a methodology for working with children’s musical theater and implementing this methodology in practice.Work in a musical theater group unites children, develops in them responsibility for a common cause.For the revival and development of the genre of children’s opera in Ukraine, it would be useful to entrust students undergoing pedagogical or production practice with staging small opera performances, or their fragments. Experiments on staging children’s operas by students of pedagogical educational institutions attract attention.The genre of children’s opera needs to be popularized among the general public in order to expand the circle of potential performers and their fans.