For our anniversary this year, Erin and I went to the Los Angeles Opera's production of Mozart's opera "The Magic Flute." This is by far my favorite opera, and I was excited for Erin to experience it as well.
To get ready for the opera Erin read a short book about it and began listening to a recording of the opera to familiarize herself with the music.
(If anyone is interested in learning more about opera, I highly recommend a series of books published by Black Dog. Each book contains a brief background to an opera, the full text of the libretto, and best of all a well-respected recording of the opera.)
The cd's to the opera were in the car for most of January and for Christmas Erin got me a video from a production of the opera that I had been to a few years ago.
As a result of this saturation, we'd often find ourselves humming bits of songs or singing little parts of it as we went about our days (Erin will freely admit that she has recurring dreams where she speaks German, but communicates solely by re-combining the eight-or-so phrases she actually knows).
The highlight of the opera is an aria (Der Hölle Rache) by the Queen of the Night:
This video is worth watching in it's entirety because it's amazing and because it gives you an idea of what I'm about to describe.
Although a recording of Erin imitating this would be a valuable contribution to the world wide web, that's not going to happen (but I'm guessing if you came for a visit, it wouldn't take much of a bribe to get Erin started). Joseph, however, has frequently enjoyed Erin's impromptu arias and has even begun to imitate her.
Those of you already familiar with the opera will understand my concern as I listened to Erin sing for Joseph a song in which a mother tells her child that the child will no longer be her child unless the child kills its father. Apparently, Joseph never understood Erin's accent, because he hasn't made any obvious attempts at my life.
Despite the message, Joseph loved hearing that particular aria. We'd ask him, "Joseph, can you sing opera?" and he would then attempt to belt out a few of his own high-F's.
At this point in the post it would be great if I had a video of him doing his impersonation of the Queen of the Night, but I'm just going to cite Joseph's refusal to perform on command in front of a camera and move on. BUT--if I EVER get a video of him doing his opera singing, I will post it and put an announcement at the front of this blog.
If you're curious as to what the Toddster's singing of this aria sounds like this should give you an idea:
(Thank you, Florence Foster Jenkins)
We only realized the extent of Joseph's love of opera on our recent trip to Disneyland. After riding in the car for nearly two hours, Joseph, who really travels well, got antsy in the car and started fussing. We offered him food and a drink, but really he just seemed tired of being in the car.
In desperation we turned on the cd player and switched to the Queen of the Night aria. Instantly--and Erin will back me up on this--Joseph stopped whining and began to smile and say "opera! opera!"
It's a good thing we've got plenty of social workers and lawyers in this family, because I'm fairly certain we're guilty of cultural abuse.
1 comment:
Poor, poor child.
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