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In the pitch-dark auditorium of Rome\u2019s Teatro Costanzi, a high-pitched lament floated from the top galleries. Dozens of flashlights snapped on, their beams crisscrossing crazily, seeking the source of the sound.<\/p>\n
The shafts of light homed in on a spectral figure \u2014 a slim, dark-haired woman dressed in white, moving at a funereal pace and plaintively singing. In the audience, 130-odd children, ages 8 to 10, let loose squeals, some gasps, and one \u201cit\u2019s not real.\u201d Several called out \u201cEmma, Emma.\u201d<\/p>\n
The children had just been told that the Costanzi, the capital\u2019s opera house, had a resident phantom. No, not that one. This was said to be the spirit of Emma Carelli, an Italian soprano who managed the theater a century ago, and loved it so much that she was loath to leave it, even in death.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cThe theater is a place where strange things happen, where what is impossible becomes possible,\u201d Francesco Giambrone, the Costanzi\u2019s general manager, told the children Saturday afternoon when they arrived to participate in a get-to-know-the-theater-sleepover.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Music education ranks as a low priority in Italy, the country that invented opera and gave the world some of its greatest composers. Many experts, including Mr. Giambrone, say their country has rested on its considerable laurels rather than cultivate a musical culture that encourages students to learn about their illustrious heritage.<\/p>\n
With little backing from schools or lawmakers, arts organizations like the Costanzi have concluded that it is up to them to reach out to the young.<\/p>\n
Mr. Giambrone sought to dispel opera’s stuffy image by abandoning the genre\u2019s strict dress code. That change, like the sleepover, is part of his effort to make opera, often seen as an elitist, highbrow and abstruse art form for the initiated, more familiar and accessible, especially to children.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cWe believe that the theater should be for everyone, and that it should make people feel at home,\u201d Mr. Giambrone said in an interview. Hence the decision to welcome youngsters to eat, sleep and play there. \u201cOnce a theater is a home, it is no longer something distant, something a bit austere to fear, or somewhere you feel inadequate,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of talk about Made in Italy, but real shortsightedness when it comes to our musical patrimony, which is envied throughout the world,\u201d said Maestro Antonio Caroccia, who teaches music history at the Santa Cecilia conservatory in Rome. He said that \u201cpoliticians are deaf to it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cItaly is far behind\u201d many other countries, said Barbara Minghetti, of Opera Education<\/a>, which creates programs for children. \u201cThis I can guarantee.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n When he was in Italy\u2019s Parliament, Michele Nitti, a musician and former lawmaker with the 5 Star Movement, proposed a law adding musical education to school curricula. His bill never made it to a parliamentary vote.<\/p>\n He said that not even Giuseppe Verdi, the 19th century composer who also served in Parliament, was able, in his time, to get his fellow lawmakers to support music education in schools.<\/p>\n Mr. Nitti was also unsuccessful in getting lawmakers to declare opera singing a national treasure. He did support the country\u2019s successful bid<\/a> to have the practice of opera singing in Italy<\/a> put on UNESCO\u2019s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.<\/p>\n \u201cOh well,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Rather than letting its opera culture wither, Mr. Giambrone said, \u201cItaly should be teaching other countries how it\u2019s done.\u201d<\/p>\n At the Teatro Costanzi, more than half of the children at the sleepover belonged to scout troops from Rome\u2019s outlying neighborhoods. They were accompanied by coolheaded scout leaders who \u2014 impressively \u2014 commanded silence just by raising a finger.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Most of the children had never visited the theater before. \u201cCome to think of it, I haven\u2019t been there either,\u201d said Gianpaolo Ricciarelli, one of the parents who dropped off his son.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Another father, Armando Cereoli, said, \u201cBetween video games, cellphones and Netflix, there\u2019s tough competition to get kids interested in beautiful things.\u201d<\/p>\n Some of the children came from disadvantaged neighborhoods, so the visit was \u201ca chance to free their minds and to dream,\u201d said Sara Greci, a scout leader and Red Cross worker who brought four girls from a home for abused women and their children.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The opera house runs several outreach programs for the homeless or people who live in Rome\u2019s most far-flung neighborhoods, a way to open the theater to the city and broaden its reach, said Andrea Bonadio, who was hired by the theater to work on such programs.<\/p>\n Nunzia Nigro, the theater\u2019s director for marketing and education, said that several of the children who had participated in the theater\u2019s educational programs over the past 25 years were loyal patrons today. \u201cWe\u2019re beginning to reap some of those efforts, and have a younger public,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Ms. Nigro helped organize the sleepover, tailoring it for 8- to 10-year-olds \u2014 old enough to sleep away from home but not old enough to have hormones kick in, she said. As it was, two boys felt homesick enough to get their moms to pick them up.<\/p>\n On Saturday, the children watched part of a rehearsal for an upcoming performance of Tchaikovsky\u2019s Fourth Symphony \u2014 \u201cthe conductor uses a wand to direct music, not so different from Harry Potter\u2019s but more important,\u201d Ms. Nigro said. They learned how the staff cleaned the world\u2019s biggest chandelier<\/a> in a historic building, and they got to know the ins and outs of the theater via a treasure hunt (read general mayhem) that had them scrambling up and down stairs, flitting in and out of stalls like a multicharacter French farce.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n