Fill in the form available at operaawards.org and help us to nominate the InclusivOpera project for the Education & Outreach category.

You have until 10 January 2020, 5 p.m., to nominate the “Macerata Opera Festival/InclusivOpera” project for the Education & Outreach category.

Expanding and diversifying opera audience through accessibility: we have been leading the way since 2009.
For over ten years, the Macerata Opera Festival has been involved in accessibility projects for people with sensory disabilities of all ages. In 2019, our guests will be offered audio descriptions in Italian for all the operas on stage, prerecorded introductory descriptions in English, tactile tours for blind people, and Italian Sign Language tours for deaf people, to go behind the scenes and discover the set, props, wardrobe, make-up, and musical instruments. Deaf people will be offered a new tour to discover the sounds and noises associated with the preparation of one of the operas on stage. During the opera performances listed below, Italian audio descriptions will be available to help blind people enjoy the opera on stage. Additionally, personal hearing devices for deaf people will be available in collaboration with Sennheiser Streaming Technologies. The ‘InclusivOpera’ project has been implemented in collaboration with the University of Macerata, Museo Statale Tattile Omero (Ancona, Italy), University of Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania), Unione Italiana dei Ciechi e degli Ipovedenti (Macerata, Italy), and the Ente Nazionale Sordi (Macerata, Italy). All tours are free and available for up to 35 people, while tickets for the performances are available at a reduced rate.
In 2018, the Macerata Opera Festival launched a new accessibility project. In the context of the Sferisterio Education projects (dedicated to students of primary and secondary schools in the province of Macerata), we actively involve blind and partially sighted children and young people in the preparation of audio descriptions for their complete and inclusive enjoyment of the performances. This accessibility project is the first of its kind, in Italy and around the world.